Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem are you solving?
Teigpiloten: We enable bakeries to offer their own breakfast delivery service and thus offer end customers the easiest way to order fresh baked goods from their favorite regional bakery with our Teigpiloten platform. Especially in rural areas, expensive outlets are no longer worthwhile due to high investment, rental and personnel costs as well as returns due to inaccurate sales planning. Through our pre-order concept and route optimization, we offer a precisely plannable sales channel that is profitable from the first day of delivery without initial investments. End customers conveniently order online until the evening before and have the fresh baked goods directly from the bakery already hanging on the door when they put on their first coffee in their pajamas.
So, with our platform we not only strengthen the local bakeries and help them to offer a contemporary service, but also contribute to securing local supply in rural areas.
Munich Startup: But that’s nothing out of the box!
Teigpiloten: Unlike Gorillas, Lieferando and Co., we rely exclusively on pre-orders and thus offer bakeries 100 percent planning security with 0 percent returns. In addition, we optimize delivery routes in advance so that a delivery driver can deliver about 10-15 orders per hour. With our full-service software concept, which focuses specifically on bakeries, we stand out from the competition and offer bakeries the opportunity to deliver in their own name.
The question of the disappearance of local bakeries
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Teigpiloten: We study together and have always been talking about something permanent that we can build together. Max and Jonas collaborated in several projects as freelancers, programming websites, Niklas joined as a strategist right at the beginning.
We were driven by the questions of why more and more bakeries are disappearing from our hometowns and why there is still no more convenient solution for the purchase of baked goods, when everything else is available from delivery services. In addition, Jonas himself worked in the bakery during his school days and thus knew the challenges on the bakery side. Coupled with experience from consultancies, company builders and early-stage startups, we then analyzed the bakery market in an impact- and technology-driven manner and founded Teigpiloten.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Teigpiloten: The Christmas months of November and December: As a young startup, we tried to find partner bakeries who wanted to test a new delivery business with us. However, the Christmas season is the highest-turnover phase of the year for bakeries, which is why we got hardly any feedback and the bakeries were busy doing other things. At the time, we couldn’t tell if it was because of our solution, lack of interest or lack of time, and we seriously wondered if we were in the right business.
Today we have new partner bakeries that have exceeded all expectations and generate significantly more sales with the Teigpiloten platform than we could have imagined. Now we are in the comfortable situation that many bakeries have recognized the advantages and proactively contact us.
Teigpiloten wants to establish itself as a sales channel for bakeries
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, and where in five years?
Teigpiloten: We want to further expand the Teigpiloten platform to reflect all suggestions from end customers and partner bakeries. In one year, we want to have 20 bakeries across Bavaria on our platform and prepared all processes so that we can onboard hundreds of bakeries throughout Germany. In 5 years, we plan to have scaled our platform throughout Germany and to be established as the most cost-efficient and convenient sales channel for bakeries.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Teigpiloten: Big and yet personal! There are incredible opportunities in Munich, especially for students, through funding from UnternehmerTUM, LMU Incubator and Co., to gain a foothold in the start-up scene during their studies. The exchange is valuable and founding teams that are already a few steps ahead are approachable – everyone supports each other!
Munich Startup: Quick exit or staying power?
Teigpiloten: Somewhere in between: We want to be active throughout Germany and develop an attractive alternative to the store structure in order to permanently establish more efficient sales concepts, especially for regional artisan bakeries, and to make shopping as easy as possible for end customers. At the same time, we have endless other ideas on our ideaboard that we would like to tackle one day.