Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves!
André Moll, Utry.me: André Moll (32) and Tobias Neuburger (40) – we’re the founders of Utry.me – the first online sample market without prices. Our shared passion for eCommerce brought us together in 2017 – and then we decided to launch Utry.me.
Munich Startup: What problem does your startup solve?
André Moll: Customers in central Europe tend to buy the same 40-50 items when grocery shopping. In many cases, they buy the same products for many years on end. And that’s boring when you consider how many products you actually find in a supermarket.
This is also a problem for brands. The likelihood of an unknown or new product being tried offhandedly is extremely low. That’s where sampling comes in. Sampling serves to generate contact through product samples.
Before Utry.me, it was only possible to use push-based sampling. That includes sidewalk marketing, in-store supermarket sampling or the now outdated subscription boxes.
Utry.me gives brand-name manufacturers the opportunity to implement pull-based sampling campaigns that are also digitally trackable with supplementary market research elements.
B2C end customers, our community, have the opportunity to try new products in “discovery mode” and – if desired – improve those products by participating in surveys.
Munich Startup: But that’s nothing out of the box!
André Moll: The product and concept are unique, which is also why it’s been so successful. Online supermarkets have obviously been around for a while now, but no sample markets like Utry.me, which solely offer new and exclusive products while also incorporating that key social community flair.
60,000 users have already given Utry.me a try
Munich Startup: What have been your three biggest challenges so far?
André Moll: a.) Managing the logistics and staff requirements caused by rapid growth in recent months.
b.) Driving growth that was bootstrapped from the very beginning.
c.) Convincing the first 100 cooperation partners to get on board with the still unknown concept behind Utry.me in 2018. Now more than 250 brands put their trust in us.
Munich Startup: How is business going?
André Moll: We’re very pleased and now bring together more than 60,000 users and over 250 brand-name partners. We expect our Utry.me community to grow to more than 100,000 users in 2021 and now have a team of over 25 employees.
Munich Startup: What do you think about Munich as a startup location?
André Moll: 9/10 points for Munich. We’re very pleased and would very much recommend Munich as a city for startups. It’s only in terms of salary and rent that Berlin still has the advantage.
Munich Startup: Facebook or TikTok?
André Moll: Preferably Instagram – for me, it’s the perfect combination of the other two platforms.