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This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.
Executive Summary
UnternehmerTUM helps experienced entrepreneurs and students to start, accelerate or fundraise to build world-class companies including but not limited to Flix, Celonis, Blickfeld, Isar Aerospace, Konux, tado, e-bot7, ProGlove or Lilium. At the 2022 German Startup Awards, UnternehmerTUM won the Special Award for their work. Therefore we interview Stefan, its COO in our series with the German Startup Association, and learn more about him and their programs.
German Startup Awards 2022
This interview is in media partnership with the German startup association (Bundesverband Deutscher Startups https://deutschestartups.org/). Their German Startup Awards #GSA22 honor each year outstanding female and male founders and investors in special categories. You can learn more about the winners in our interviews and on this website: https://germanstartupawards.de/rueckblick/rueckblick-2022
You can also have a look at our history, we also interviewed many winners of the German Startup Awards 2021 already.
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The Video Interview is set to go live on Thursday, December 1st 2022
The Audio Interview
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The Award Winner
This time we have a very special case since the legal entity UnternehmerTUM (https://www.unternehmertum.de/en) won the German Startup Awards’ 2022 Special Award. UnternehmerTUM itself is attached to the Technical University of Munich (TUM) (https://www.tum.de/en/). It is also one of the cradles of Munich’s world-class startup talent and a light tower in the education of entrepreneurs in Germany. We, therefore, talk to Stefan Drüssler.
Stefan , COO of UnternehmerTUM, is no stranger to entrepreneurism (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-dr%C3%BCssler-74424458/). As a past consultant with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), he has advised startups and Fortune 500 companies alike on how to grow their businesses. But when he joined UnternehmerTUM 5 years ago, he found his true calling in helping entrepreneurs bring their startups to life.
Located in Munich, UnternehmerTUM is one of the world’s leading incubators and accelerators for startups. It is also a hub for entrepreneur education, providing programs and resources to help founders get their businesses off the ground. Recently, UnternehmerTUM was honored with the German Startup Awards’ 2022 Special Award. This recognition is a testament to the incredible work that Stefan and his colleagues are doing to support startup growth in Germany.
Looking to the future, Stefan is excited about the potential for UnternehmerTUM to continue supporting more founders as they turn their innovative ideas into successful businesses. With the right mix of resources and support, there’s no limit to what German startups can achieve.
The Institute
UnternehmerTUM (https://www.unternehmertum.de/en) was founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Susanne Klatten as a non-profit organization. With more than 50 high-growth technology start-ups each year and its unique offering, it is the leading center for innovation and business creation in Europe. It is an institute attached to the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
Mrs. Klatten (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanne_Klatten) was raised in a successful entrepreneurial family and her family owns jointly the controlling stake in BMW. The organization’s goal is to promote entrepreneurship among students and scientists, and it offers a variety of programs and resources to support entrepreneurs and its members. In addition to providing educational opportunities, UnternehmerTUM also offers mentorship and networking programs to help its members connect with potential investors and customers. As a result of its efforts, UnternehmerTUM has helped to launch numerous successful businesses.
UnternehmerTUM helps founders from the idea stage to financing, they are also involved in teaching entrepreneurship at TUM. They have more than 350 employees working on 20 independent programs, where the help with ideation, incubation, acceleration and finally financing. They not only have programs addressing students of TU Munich but also programms that are open to every entrepreneur.
In the past, they worked in different stages with unicorns Celonis, and Flix, but also startups like Lilium (the flying taxi startup listed on NASDAQ) or Blickfeld, Isar Aerospace, Konux, tado, e-bot7, or ProGlove (https://medium.com/startuprad-io/our-2018-guest-proglove-makes-monster-exit-at-around-500-m-plans-to-be-the-next-teamviewer-64087cedd395).
Mentioned Startups
We will publish an interview with one of the founders of Flix in December 2022.
Here is the interview with ProGlove from 2018 mentioned in the interview https://youtu.be/dE76h-bKTH0
E-bot7 is also an alumnus of UnternehmerTUM https://medium.com/startuprad-io/munich-based-e-bot-7-was-acquired-for-more-than-50-m-us-eb6694e4d1d5
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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:
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Topics Discussed in this Interview
In this interview, we are talking about startups, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, entrepreneur education, entrepreneur training, startup funding, startup incubation, startup acceleration, startup programs, TU Munich, TU München, Technische Universität München, unicorns
Automated Transcript
00:00:00.000 → 00:00:07.760Music.
00:00:07.609 → 00:00:12.996Welcome to Startuprad.io your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German-speaking startup scene.
00:00:12.880 → 00:00:18.800Music.
00:00:19.988 → 00:00:29.308Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startuprad.io your startup podcast in YouTube block from the german-speaking area bringing you again
00:00:29.170 → 00:00:43.036here another winner of the Germans got of Awards this award Was Won by a legal entity called unternehmertum but since it’s very hard to interview a legal entity I do have it see
00:00:42.889 → 00:00:50.211Co and Co oh Stephen here with me hey how you doing thank you Joe for the invitation it’s great to be here.
00:00:50.640 → 00:01:01.500Only my pleasure first up congratulations for winning the special award of the German startup words 2022 and we may say that unternehmertum is kind of a
00:01:01.380 → 00:01:04.498which play this T um
00:01:04.423 → 00:01:13.986also means as so and unternehmertum means entrepreneurship and German and is T um is spelled in capital letters which could also mean.
00:01:14.442 → 00:01:24.609Technical University of Munich technician universität München which by coincident is the University you’re attached to.
00:01:24.750 → 00:01:27.039Exactly exactly.
00:01:27.478 → 00:01:35.294And that’s actually the reason I am here at work honey Mattoon was because I studied at the Technical University.
00:01:35.661 → 00:01:46.511And so actually I became a huge fan of unternehmertum that time because when I studied at home I started something called technology and management soy.
00:01:46.697 → 00:01:58.367Business administration classes and also and classes in technology that was in find Stefan in the area of food Tech life and food Sciences.
00:01:58.877 → 00:02:06.928And I also took classes in entrepreneurship there was a new institution unternehmertum at that time and they offered a business plan seminar.
00:02:07.529 → 00:02:12.987And actually that was the coolest thing I did to be honest because it for us.
00:02:13.263 → 00:02:23.988Interdisciplinary so I didn’t study only with the let’s say the people from my study program right but from all the other study programs at the Technical University so it was very diverse.
00:02:24.228 → 00:02:32.648And it was not like a lecturer somebody tries to tell you something and try to explain you how to do something and you take notes right away but it’s.
00:02:32.762 → 00:02:42.460It was we did something so you come up with an idea and you form a team and then you write a business plan and by doing that project you’re actually learn a lot,
00:02:42.538 → 00:02:56.270boldly I really hope that none of you from a professor’s listening right now except for the tax professors they know they’re not the number one sought after destination nonetheless I also
00:02:56.087 → 00:03:10.547took a look into the analyzers by our friends startup heatmap dot-eu they have an analyzer stay shared with me and actually Munich is within Europe in the top,
00:03:10.572 → 00:03:17.551five for growing educating training their own entrepreneur.
00:03:17.809 → 00:03:22.133Put a talent and you’re only behind Paris
00:03:22.112 → 00:03:27.904first this London Paris Barcelona Madrid and then there is you so
00:03:27.739 → 00:03:38.373that already means a lot and actually we have another winner of the German startup was the founder of flicks flicks bus Which also was.
00:03:39.181 → 00:03:47.592Got investment from unternehmertum Ab before he can get into all of that we getting a little bit ahead of ourself and I.
00:03:47.832 → 00:04:02.121I looked at your profile in LinkedIn and I want to talk a little bit about you and what you did you credit as you already set from Technical University mention and you worked for BCG for quite some time right,
00:04:02.227 → 00:04:05.065yes I did yes so that was.
00:04:05.188 → 00:04:16.048Basically a classical path right so I studied technology and management you had some experience in business and but also in an engineering subject.
00:04:16.720 → 00:04:19.280And at that time.
00:04:20.582 → 00:04:29.443Graduates often they they wanted to go to large and successful corporates companies like BMW or like to Consulting
00:04:29.323 → 00:04:37.212and I took the path of Consulting So I entered BCG I walked up there for quite some years.
00:04:37.578 → 00:04:41.731I did a lot of Consulting for for banks for federal banks.
00:04:42.350 → 00:04:51.310They after the financial crisis they were in real trouble so we help them restructure them.
00:04:52.693 → 00:05:01.941But in the end it was I mean it was it was amazing and I don’t want to miss that time but it was less creating new it was less about
00:05:01.939 → 00:05:04.237Innovation and really trying to
00:05:04.099 → 00:05:17.227to create something new and this is when when I was in contact with hammered hammered is actually he’s this I’m the Chief Operating Officer Hammer is the CEO and founder of unternehmertum so he gave me a call and he asked if I want to join.
00:05:17.603 → 00:05:22.944And since I know unternehmertum for quite some time I couldn’t resist.
00:05:23.202 → 00:05:32.432I see because I was always wondering how did this transition actually happened because you didn’t get one day back in your hotel room and said hmm
00:05:32.375 → 00:05:42.470let’s do something different let’s join unternehmertum because then usually the decision is go to corporate job set up your own company or something like this but not joining an
00:05:42.440 → 00:05:55.946how’s the legal term attached Institute to a university I think that is something like 0.1% would consider doing out of Consulting I’m and you don’t first as chief
00:05:55.853 → 00:06:00.294operating officer position you’re hot you’re holding until today
00:06:00.174 → 00:06:10.638exactly I’m still Chief Operating Officer and I’m one of the managing directors we are a team of managing directors and at all tournaments and I basically have two jobs
00:06:10.518 → 00:06:17.966so one I’m responsible for some of our programs unternehmertum has about 20 programs.
00:06:18.179 → 00:06:26.92320 independent running programs with their own Brands and I’m responsible for programs where are we.
00:06:27.181 → 00:06:32.558Educate and have talent so for example students from the Technical University,
00:06:32.591 → 00:06:47.268to come up with an idea to get inspired of Entrepreneurship to try out how what it means to found a company very often that’s part of their regular study so they get credit points for that so it’s an integral part
00:06:47.139 → 00:06:53.885um of their studiesand then I’m also responsible for program because then.
00:06:54.323 → 00:07:03.535Some of these they say Okay I want to find out now I’m studying at the Technical University and the Technical university has a strategy to be the entrepreneurial University,
00:07:03.595 → 00:07:12.078so they say I want to find out if I want to be an entrepreneur in my life so I want to start a project so do I have the right team what do I need,
00:07:12.102 → 00:07:25.366how do I financed this startup at the beginning okay I’m a maybe a scientist a researcher how can I evaluate if this is an idea that I can use for starting my own company okay so this is like a pre incubation phase.
00:07:25.966 → 00:07:35.592And then you have people that say okay now I decided to become a father so they say okay thank you large corporate or thank you.
00:07:36.129 → 00:07:43.649Any company that I applied for your they give me an offer but I declined because I’m a founder and I decided to be to be an entrepreneur.
00:07:44.267 → 00:07:47.934So we incubate and accelerate them in.
00:07:48.183 → 00:07:56.306Dedicated three-month program for example Horrocks pruners incubation program and then.
00:07:56.745 → 00:08:00.835They also need financing we as unternehmertum we try to help
00:08:00.769 → 00:08:12.583Founders at all stages so for example we have a program where we fund early stage startups for example with 100,000 euros in a.
00:08:13.354 → 00:08:16.345And this is one part of my work.
00:08:16.991 → 00:08:26.671And then I’m also the Chief Operating Officer of this organization so as I mentioned there are 20 teams okay with different business models how can we stay
00:08:26.506 → 00:08:40.337one company how can we ensure team cohesion so for example how can we do internal communication how can we organize ourselves so these are also amazing topics that I’m responsible.
00:08:40.586 → 00:08:50.482Mhm icac and of course all the programs and just scrolling through them as we’re talking is something pretty,
00:08:50.488 → 00:09:01.708interesting and of course we link it down here in a show notes below so everybody can click on it so that means usually you are,
00:09:01.768 → 00:09:11.493more or less offering classes in entrepreneurship but when they’re basically hooked on entrepreneurship you also help the students.
00:09:11.914 → 00:09:26.464To basically start out with the company as you said for example with with some start capital I would be curious do you have a few successful examples that worked with you in the past
00:09:26.452 → 00:09:28.003exactly so.
00:09:28.577 → 00:09:38.905So you have to imagine it’s like a course it’s like a funnel right so you start with enabling Jack talents but then it’s also very open to,
00:09:38.983 → 00:09:49.447startups that are later stage so for example how our expert knows program you cannot any startup can apply for the extra knows program and the team picks what they say is that,
00:09:49.471 → 00:09:55.019best and most interesting and promising startup in debt in that stage.
00:09:55.458 → 00:10:07.794And around all that okay you must imagine unternehmertum as an ecosystem because it’s not about just okay being in a program or listening to a class or being there at these three month in these three months
00:10:07.773 → 00:10:16.967unternehmertum works also with corporate with Middle East and has a network of investors so it’s all about this.
00:10:17.351 → 00:10:19.550Being part of this ecosystem.
00:10:19.746 → 00:10:33.747Bringing the right people together and supporting Innovation and so for example today owners might be one example some people have heard of that’s the most valuable German startup or.
00:10:33.978 → 00:10:40.598What is also an interesting startup is ISA Aerospace the build small rocket launcher so it’s.
00:10:40.739 → 00:10:47.160One of the High Hopes startups for European European space Market.
00:10:47.356 → 00:11:00.808And you mention flicks bus for example so tournament in Venture Capital partners for example is invested invested in a very early stage in two flicks bus and now it’s it’s a huge.
00:11:02.092 → 00:11:13.168Pressure a huge successful Innovative organization that also entered the US market by the acquisition of great home for example an amazing story.
00:11:13.327 → 00:11:21.477Yeah lilium the flying caps the flying taxis right yeah I see that they are a lot of very interesting.
00:11:21.627 → 00:11:30.767Things out there so could you also as a non-student of tea you get M could you also join unternehmertum.
00:11:31.170 → 00:11:33.801Yes so you can chop control over that’s all.
00:11:34.158 → 00:11:46.737Our let’s say mother is the Technical University of Munich but we are actually not part of the Technical University as you said we are an Institute or Affiliated Institute so we are very independent.
00:11:47.077 → 00:11:59.485And we want to actually attract also great startups great entrepreneurs for from anywhere around the world to join our ecosystem so we can increase the quality of this ecosystem of course and,
00:11:59.554 → 00:12:08.577when somebody joins you I’m can we go to for example the first program and how you could help them develop too
00:12:08.457 → 00:12:17.876eventually become a successful startup entrepreneur there are so many different Journeys so one cherny could be you are are an amazing,
00:12:17.927 → 00:12:26.113student at the Technical University you could apply for a program called manage and more it’s a scholarship program where.
00:12:26.327 → 00:12:29.552A very small group is being elected.
00:12:30.035 → 00:12:37.924And you are doing projects and you learn your gift you develop yourself as a
00:12:37.885 → 00:12:52.328it’s a person in a very intensive program about its work of about 20 hours per week which goes on talk to your regular study so you can only do that if you’re well-organized very motivated for the duration of one and a half years.
00:12:52.640 → 00:12:54.498Many of these.
00:12:54.666 → 00:13:06.570Amazing talents then become later successful Farmers or not or they join a company or do something differently or become very successful researchers that’s all very great and all very amazing.
00:13:06.918 → 00:13:16.841It will let me let me let me mention one more thing because you asked about the starters and about the what are examples for start-up so our focus is detects startups,
00:13:16.919 → 00:13:27.671very often it’s B2B I mean it’s not so surprising because we are connected to the Technical University so some people have not heard about many of these startups because they are successful.
00:13:28.127 → 00:13:33.963B2B Stars One Excel I mean II as you can see this glove behind me okay it’s,
00:13:34.024 → 00:13:41.958that’s a startup called Pro graph so what you can what the what you can do is you can scan parts,
00:13:42.009 → 00:13:50.087in the supply chain and what you do you don’t need to use you know a scanning pistol but you have the scanner already connected to your glove.
00:13:50.561 → 00:13:54.273And by doing so you save a lot of time so basically they are working.
00:13:54.432 → 00:14:02.465With all the large corporations we have a supply chain and wear every second in the supply chain counts and I guess not many people have heard of.
00:14:02.714 → 00:14:11.683Pro Glass but everybody working in the supply chain in a corporate has actually we interview them back in 2018 when we’ve been
00:14:11.554 → 00:14:14.564in New York and we interviewed them
00:14:14.399 → 00:14:29.048on top of the building where the German accelerator is located with one World Trade Center in the background which was pretty nice and for everybody who’s interested go down here in the show notes there is a link to our medium block and there you’ll also find the link
00:14:28.928 → 00:14:35.377to the pro glove interview from dating back I think yeah for years.
00:14:35.590 → 00:14:46.684Crazy yes and I think so that’s what also these kind of startups it takes a lot of time and patience because if your phone Daddy Tech startup.
00:14:46.933 → 00:14:55.902Takes long it takes a longer time than founding let’s say a scalable online platform or a nap,
00:14:55.953 → 00:15:08.496for something so sometimes you need to be very patient it’s a little bit more difficult for investors to decide in investing into addict starts because you really need the know-how and the expertise to do so.
00:15:08.799 → 00:15:14.186But actually that that’s what I would say this ecosystem is all about and that’s a core strength of,
00:15:14.282 → 00:15:25.240Germany and Munich to have this engineering detect capabilities and now I think our mission is to transform all this capability into successful startups.
00:15:25.391 → 00:15:32.388As he said it’s a location of deep tech there many famous.
00:15:33.025 → 00:15:41.526Companies down there in Munich that actually work pretty deep and check for example many people may have heard of Siemens
00:15:41.307 → 00:15:45.325BMW is also headquartered there so they’re just
00:15:45.169 → 00:15:53.283a few examples I do believe a lot of foreign tech companies also headquartered in Munich for their German or International headquarters.
00:15:53.712 → 00:16:02.357Just like Google Microsoft sales for so they are all coming to Munich so it’s an amazing time right now so many tech companies Trust.
00:16:02.552 → 00:16:10.621Came to Munich there is a strong basis of already established companies there is the German Middle East and smes around that.
00:16:11.176 → 00:16:23.323Amazing talents of the Technical University but also the University of Munich the University of applied sciences so a very strong bases and that now transforms into a very let’s say.
00:16:23.554 → 00:16:30.408Dedicated and serious and I would say sustainable kind of startup creation.
00:16:30.666 → 00:16:39.869That sounds pretty promising what what is what is on the horizon for you what are the next Plant for unternehmertum conquered world.
00:16:40.893 → 00:16:49.007Basically we want to we want to find partners that share our mission we can conquer the world.
00:16:49.571 → 00:17:01.880But you know when we when we when we talk to two startups I made what I learned actually in the business plan seminar 20 years ago they said you know when you when you found a start-up do it in a team because nobody’s perfect but a team can be
00:17:02.615 → 00:17:13.286this is actually what we think we have in Europe we have other very strong entrepreneurship centers and strong Tech ecosystems and now the question is
00:17:13.202 → 00:17:20.001ten we are actually our what what we want to do is join forces combine our strengths and to
00:17:19.926 → 00:17:29.094support the next European unicorns and the next European Tech startups and the next European.
00:17:29.415 → 00:17:34.306Companies because that’s what that’s what we need if we want to have European.
00:17:34.690 → 00:17:42.543Successful European companies in the future we need to start helping them and creating them right now well,
00:17:42.630 → 00:17:56.659how would say that are amazing closing words for everybody who would like to learn more down here in the show notes of course there’s a link to unternehmertum to the pro glove and flicks interview as well and
00:17:56.629 → 00:18:05.553I would like to say thank you very much it was a pleasure talking to you and best of luck and of course again congratulations for the German startup Ward.
00:18:05.847 → 00:18:13.241Thanks that goes to the team thank you so much for the invitation show it was a great pleasure thank you have a good day bye bye bye bye.
00:18:15.920 → 00:18:43.221Music.
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