Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem are you solving?
Gominga: We focus on consumer insights and customer engagement on online platforms like Amazon, Apple or Google. As a young technology company, we offer the world’s leading SaaS software for online review management.
Gominga makes it possible for companies in all industries to improve their digital customer experience. With the user-friendly software tool, we help our customers efficiently and professionally manage their ratings, reviews and Q&As on all digital platforms. Marketing, product management and e-commerce teams rely on us to generate key insights for improving their products and services based on customer feedback. Artificial intelligence and sentiment analysis are the key words.
Customer service and social media teams use our integrated ticket management system to respond directly to individual reviews or questions on the various platforms. It’s basically customer interaction in the digital age.
We see ourselves as a one-stop-shop for professional review management. Regardless of whether it’s a mobile app, a location, an online shop or product reviews – Gominga promotes a company’s online reputation to increase revenue over the long term.
Munich Startup: But that’s nothing out of the box!
Gominga: The subject isn’t new and there are some players in our market, especially globally. That being said, our approach is still unique. Why? Because we focus on the analysis and response option for ratings, reviews and Q&As across all of the relevant online platforms. Many companies focus on specific platforms, such as Amazon, Google or Apple, and offer all-in-one packages – which means they aren’t as focused on review management.
Collecting customer reviews online as comprehensively as possible
In contrast, we offer a tool for all types of reviews and global platforms. We now cover more than 300 platforms. Certainly the most well known are Amazon, Bazaarvoice and Walmart in the field of product reviews; the Apple App Store and Google Play Store for mobile app reviews; Google My Business and Yelp for store reviews; and Trusted Shops or Trustpilot for website/online shop reviews.
We’ve made it our mission to collect customer reviews online as comprehensively as possible and to make them easily accessible. Our SaaS tool is now used, appreciated and recommended by many renowned national and international companies. We are constantly expanding our product portfolio and solution, which allows us to meet the demands of the market.
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Gominga: We see ourselves as a technology company with 25 years of experience in digital media and e-commerce. Amazon became successful in retail through product reviews, and user-generated content now affects our consumer behavior over the long term.
This gave rise to our business idea: to help companies actively manage their user-generated content, namely reviews and questions in e-business. That’s why we’ve developed software that makes it possible for our customers to manage several e-business platforms at the same time with one tool.
Organic, natural growth
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Gominga: The first years have been our biggest challenge so far. Because we’re bootstrapped and therefore don’t have any investors on board, everything we do is about organic, natural growth. That’s obviously difficult, especially in the beginning. Our topic of focus is relatively new, and the market environment is extremely dynamic. That means you always have to be at the top of your game.
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, and where in five years?
Gominga: The aim in one year is for Gominga to be the go-to solution across Germany for efficient and comprehensive review management. Over the long term, in the next five years, that’s what we want to achieve globally. We’re already well on our way. As pioneers in the niche, we’ve already built a good reputation. We work with global companies like BSH, LG, Samsung and Gardena and would like to provide long-term support to more strong companies as well. Moreover, we have extremely successful partnerships with companies such as Bazaarvoice, Clarabridge/Qualtrics, Trustpilot and Zendesk. We’re constantly working on expanding our product and the market.
Munich is in their name
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Gominga: Munich is home to an exceptionally open-minded startup culture and scene. You receive support from many sources and live on the inspiring exchange of experience and ideas. That’s something we’ve particularly noticed since moving into our new office in the Werksviertel near the Ostbahnhof. Munich is definitely worth recommending. Not to mention, the name for Munich in the local dialect (Minga) is in our name: go-minga.
Munich Startup: Staying power or quick exit?
Gominga: We don’t have any external investors or venture capitalists at Gominga. This gives us complete freedom over the future of the company. We can make our own decisions and don’t have any constraints. So Gominga definitely stands for staying power! Our goal is sustainable, long-term growth with a focus on added value without us abandoning ship.