Munich Startup: What motivated you to found the company?
Franziska Scheuerle, founder Loremo: The love of art, innovative design and high-quality aesthetics. This passion paired with my incredible impatience have led to the success of Loremo. If something goes too slowly for me or things need to change, I tackle them and implement them until the result meets my standards.
Munich Startup: What would you have liked to know before your first startup?
Franziska Scheuerle: I think it was good not to have known many things at the beginning, otherwise I probably would never have founded. Founding is like having children (even though I don’t have any children yet): Once the baby is born, you love it more than anything and fight like a lioness until it grows up.
Munich Startup: How has your company been financed so far?
Franziska Scheuerle: Bootstrapping.
Munich Startup: When and where do you get the best ideas?
Franziska Scheuerle: In exchange with inspiring personalities or in lively, pulsating metropolitan cities.
Munich Startup: What are your 3 favourite work tools?
Franziska Scheuerle: MacBook Air, iPhone and EarPods.
Munich Startup: What’s your top tip for pitching?
Franziska Scheuerle: Make it short. Be charismatic. Catch and release.
Overall economic situation? Currently no unicorn ride
Munich Startup: Does it seem like a good time to start up right now? Why?
Franziska Scheuerle: Difficult question, because the economic situation in Germany does not look very promising at the moment. Investors are more cautious than in previous years. Given the fact that startups are taxed the same as large stock corporations and we have inflation or recession with rising energy and living costs, the situation is not exactly a unicorn ride. Many already successful companies are thinking of moving their headquarters abroad.
It therefore depends very much on the business idea and the corresponding brand positioning. A positioning in the mass or luxury market is promising. Premium, on the other hand, will incur losses according to trend analyses. The luxury conglomerates LVMH, Kering & Richemont will expand their market potential even more in the coming years. The snake game of the economic giants is intensifying. The luxury sector is booming.
Important for founding any kind of business despite political and economic crises: Passion. Because without passion, determination, optimism, solution-orientation and a can-do spirit, you cannot withstand the marathon of building a company in the current difficult economic times.
Franziska Scheuerle: “I would rely on AI sooner for the next startup”.
Munich Startup: What technology or industry would you focus on for your next startup?
Franziska Scheuerle: We are currently developing an artificial intelligence (AI) for our algorithm-based art configurator. I developed this myself and coded it with the help of programmers. At Loremo, we follow the lean management principle, try to automate as much as possible and always keep up with the latest technology. We love ChatGPT, as well as keeping up with trends like Web3, NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens, editor’s note) and the Metaverse. However, in the next startup, I would focus on AI much earlier. In a few years, AI will be the ubiquitous standard and our reliable companion – while in 2023 we are still talking about the year of AI as hype. Although I am a haptic person, when it comes to technology I am very much oriented towards science fiction films, scientific innovations and trend analysis.
Munich Startup: What do you think could be improved in Munich as a startup location?
Franziska Scheuerle: I love Munich and am very grateful that we chose this location. For our exclusive target group of Loremo, this is absolutely right. However, the support for startups in the field of arts and culture must be drastically improved in the context of digitalisation. The arts and culture sector urgently needs to be made more innovative and digitised. We are making a statement with Loremo by taking a pioneering role. But there is still a lot to do to raise the sometimes very dusty art market to a completely new level: Modern. Innovative. Immersive. The latest technologies on the market already offer great possibilities for realisation.
Munich Startup: Which founder would you like to meet in person? And what would you ask him or her?
Franziska Scheuerle: Hanno Renner from Personio. I would ask him how much he (still) sleeps per day and what his biggest challenge was in setting up the Munich Unicorn.