Gutfeel founders Dominik Grauer and Marius Greubel (right)

Gutfeel: Market research with Generation Z

The Munich-based startup Gutfeel offers B2C companies digital testing with the Generation Z market, which customers can launch inexpensively and quickly. The idea came from a student project with which the team already won the Strascheg Award in 2021. In 2023, Gutfeel was then officially founded by Marius Greubel and Dominik Grauer with an Exist funding grant.

Munich Startup: What does Gutfeel do? What problem do you solve?

Marius Greubel, Gutfeel: We do market research with Generation Z via app. This increasingly important target group is very difficult and under-representative to reach with conventional market research solutions. Therefore, we have made it our task to specifically address young people with our solution. With a DIY approach, we enable our clients to obtain market feedback from the GenZ within a few hours, starting at three-digit rates in costs.

Goal: Largest GenZ community for market feedback

Portrait Marius Greubel gutfeel
Our interview partner Marius Greubel.

Munich Startup: But that’s nothing out of the box! 

Marius Greubel: Gutfeel is a specialist for Generation Z. Our incentive system is specially designed for young people, which makes survey participation interactive and exciting. This makes the topic of “surveys and market research”, which is rather dryly branded in this generation, also attractive for teenagers and young adults.

Munich Startup: What is your founding story?

Marius Greubel: Dominik and I met in the Master’s programme “Entrepreneurship and Digital Transformation” at the University of Applied Sciences Munich in cooperation with the Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship. After two years of weekend and evening projects as well as a few pivots, sleepless nights and the acceptance for the EXIST Business Start-up Grant, we have been working full-time on Gutfeel since November 2022 and mastered the market entry in June 2023.

Founding in a team: Like a marriage

Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?

Marius Greubel: The search for co-founders is always a challenge because it feels like a marriage that you enter into. Everything has to fit together. The financial uncertainty as a founder is another one. But as long as time is not extremely pressing, we accept the current status. Aligned with one of our values, “Trust the process and your gut feeling”, we just keep going and do our best!

Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?

Marius Greubel: We are very satisfied with the results of the first pilot projects. We are generating sales and our app community is also growing bit by bit. In the next step, we want to gain more experience on the market and get to know our customers even better. The goal is to maximise the added value we can generate through market feedback.

Gutfeel: Very satisfied with pilot project

Marius Greubel: In the long term, however, we are pursuing the vision of building the largest GenZ community for market feedback in German-speaking countries, giving every consumer a voice and making this young and increasingly attractive market accessible to all companies.

Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?

Marius Greubel: As extremely vibrant, with many bright minds, creative thinkers and above all support from various organisations. Can highly recommend!

Munich Startup: Public transport or bicycle?

Marius Greubel: Bicycle! Last month’s Google statistics say that I sat on the saddle for 356 km.

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Als Redakteurin ist die Wirtschaftsgeografin Helen Duran seit 2015 für Euch in der hiesigen Gründerszene unterwegs. Sie ist neugierig auf Eure spannenden Startup-Geschichten!

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