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As Co-Founder & CTO of yamuntu GmbH, leader & co-founder of the byteAdventures community, organiser of the Hamburg Dart, Firebase and byteAdventures Meetups, it is my mission to help people achieve more, believe in themselves and create great things with technology. Although I now spend most of my time enabling other people to develope themselves, I still see myself as a nerd from the bottom of my heart. I love any kind of challenge and firmly believe that most people are capable of far more than they think. You just have to give them the chance and encourage them.
Even though I was always fascinated by science and technology, I first and foremost wanted to become a carpenter after Highschool. After looking into several different other professions I decided that I wanted to create things with my own hands and finish my work with the satisfying feeling of having an actual product as a result. As I was the first in my family to finish Highschool starting as a carpenter a bit low to aim for and after several reorientations that included everything from studying psychology to joining the Police Special Forces, I settled for the "intellectual equivalent of carpentry"; software development. The experience of finishing my Bachelor of Science left me with the clear mindset that studying computer science is about as crucial to being a good software developer as it would be the case for carpentry.
Before yamuntu I collected most of my knowledge and experience that impacted my later professional life during my time at a (back then) small startup called ABOUT YOU. After starting there as working student to write my Bachelor-thesis the company and I grew and developed incredibly fast. While ABOUT YOU went under 200 people and a little known Brand to over 1200 people and one of the most influential online retailers in Europe, I went from working student to Software Developer and finally to presenting ABOUT YOU as tech evangelist at international conferences. All while organising the code talks and leading the development of their website and conference CMS.
In May 2019 I spoke at a smaller event, sharing insights on organisational structures, the mentality and agile approaches that enabled ABOUT YOU's rapid growth of the recent years. When I found out, at super short notice that I had to present in German, I sat down in a small office to rework my presentation. Next to me there was a 19 year old entrepreneur, that was speaking at the evening pitch session, joined me in working on his presentation. I gave some insights on public speaking, while he was telling me all about the company he just founded called yamuntu. Wunni presented the idea of yamuntu later that evening and almost everyone there, just like me were excited for the idea and couldn't believe that there was no company yet realising it. With me as a super sceptic person, seeing the potential of the idea and impressed by Wunnis pathos, I offered my support as technical mentor.
Later that year, at one of our monthly input meetings, Wunni offered me to join yamuntu as CTO and co-founder. The previous month confirmed my belief but not just in the idea but also in the way Wunni handled things as a CEO. It reminded me of Tarek in a lot of ways. Still, the decision was not easy. Aside from all the progress of the last years and my friends at ABOUT YOU, with a job a lot my peers would kill for, I was supposed to give it all up and take a huge paycut to join two 20-year old guys with 3 months cash and an app that was more of a glorified listview than anything else.
I took the risk and started with yamuntu in March 2020. In the first month it became more and more clear that Corona would have a big impact in all our lives and we cut my salary 3 times to extend our runway. With me introducing a new TechStack and Max (yamuntu's first employee) by our side we built our 2.0 version of yamuntu within 1.5 months, rarely sleeping longer than 4 hours.
Since then a lot has happened, we went from 3 to now 15 people. From almost being out of money to finishing our SeedRound with a list of pretty big names investing 1.2 million into us as people and the idea. From a list of Brand names to 4 Applications all build on the same codebase, going above and beyond of what a small agile Team usually would be able to do in such a short amount of time. Already planning our next version of the app that won't just automate the processes of influencer marketing but learning from our technical and conceptional mistakes to create a social commerce platform for millennials & gen-z.
Even though our journey might seem pretty amazing, the truth and journey that got us to this point obviously is not as simple and easy going. We faced just as many, maybe due to the pandemic even more challenges, than most startups. The following quote as metaphor of starting a company comes to mind:
Just now have I've fully come to understand the meaning of this quote and understand why most startups fail so early on. Even though you might be able to solve every upcoming problem, the motivation as to why you stand up every morning and work 14 - 16 hours is key and to me. The reasons that drive you to do so are incredibly crucial to surviving longer than a year. To me the main drivers are my passion, role models and idealism. My passion to create something that makes every voice count, democratising the world of influencer marketing in which you don't count if you don't have thousands of followers. Role models like my dad who grew up with 7 people in a container and always worked extra hard to build a better future for his family. His motivation enabled me to start from there and go even further to improve the life of all the people that matter to me.
I believe that technology is the first chance in a predatory, reckless economy that lets mostly those succeed that have those qualities. Now with software and technology enabling anyone with great ideas to replicate these ideas and make them accessible to everyone, we get the chance to have an impact without fully adapting to the system and making an impact in the way that we believe is right.
The main ideal for how is to join yamuntu is their motivation. Even though the founders and idea are the foundation of every startup the most important to me are the people that actually build it.
Als Co-Founder & CTO der yamuntu GmbH, Leiter & Mitgründer der byteAdventures Community, Organisator der Hamburg Dart, Firebase und byteAdventures Meetups ist es meine Mission, Menschen dabei zu helfen, mehr zu erreichen, an sich selbst zu glauben und mit Technologie großartige Dinge zu schaffen. Obwohl ich inzwischen den Großteil meiner Zeit damit verbringe, es anderen Leute zu ermöglichen, sich zu verbessern, sehe ich mich immer noch und bin im tiefsten Inneren meines Herzens ein Nerd. Ich liebe jeglicher Art von Herausforderungen und glaube fest daran, dass die meisten Menschen zu weit mehr fähig sind, als sie denken. Man muss ihnen nur die Chance geben und sie ermutigen.
Obwohl ich schon immer von Wissenschaft und Technik fasziniert war, wollte ich nach der Schule zuerst Tischler werden. Nachdem ich mir verschiedene Berufe angeschaut hatte, beschloss ich, dass ich Dinge mit meinen eigenen Händen erschaffen und meine Arbeit mit dem befriedigenden Gefühl verlassen wollte, ein tatsächliches Produkt als Ergebnis zu haben. Da ich der erste in meiner Familie war, der sein Abi abgeschlossen hat, war der Beruf des Tischlers ein zu niedriges Ziel. Nach mehreren Umorientierungen, die vom Psychologiestudium bis zum Eintritt in die Polizei-Spezialeinheit reichten, entschied ich mich für das "intellektuelle Äquivalent zum Tischler": die Softwareentwicklung. Die Erfahrungen, die ich dann während meines Bachelor Studiums machen konnte, haben mir gezeigt, dass ein Informatikstudium ungefähr genauso wichtig ist, um ein guter Softwareentwickler zu sein, wie es beim Tischler der Fall gewesen wäre.
Vor yamuntu sammelte ich die meisten Kenntnisse und Erfahrungen, die mein späteres Berufsleben beeinflussten, während meiner Zeit bei dem (damals noch) kleinen Start-up ABOUT YOU. Nachdem ich dort als Werkstudent angefangen hatte, um meine Bachelorarbeit zu schreiben, entwickelten sich das Unternehmen und ich als Person unglaublich schnell. ABOUT YOU wuchs innerhalb weniger Monate von unter 200 Leuten und einer fast unbekannten Marke zu über 1200 Leuten und einem der einflussreichsten Online-Händler in Europa wurde. Währenddessen entwickelte ich mich vom Werkstudenten zum Software-Entwickler und schließlich zum Tech-Evangelist, der ABOUT YOU auf internationalen Konferenzen präsentierte. All das, während ich die Code Talks organisierte und die Entwicklung ihrer Website und ihres Konferenz-CMS leitete.
Im Mai 2019 sprach ich auf einer kleineren Veranstaltung und gab Einblicke in die Organisationsstrukturen, die Mentalität und die agilen Ansätze, die das schnelle Wachstum von ABOUT YOU in den letzten Jahren ermöglicht haben. Als ich super kurzfristig erfuhr, dass ich auf Deutsch präsentieren musste, habe ich mich kurzerhand in ein kleines Büro zurückgezogen, um meine Präsentation zu überarbeiten. Neben mir saß ein 19-jähriger Typ, der bei der Pitch-Session am Abend sprechen sollte, und arbeitete an seiner Präsentation. Ich gab ihm ein paar Tipps zum Thema public speaking, während er mir alles über die Firma erzählte, die er gerade gegründet hatte; yamuntu. Wunni präsentierte die Idee von yamuntu später am Abend und fast alle Anwesenden waren, genau wie ich, begeistert von der Idee. Wir konnten nicht glauben, dass es noch keine Firma gibt, die diese Idee umgesetzt hatte. Da ich als super skeptischer Mensch das Potenzial der Idee sah und von Wunni's Pathos beeindruckt war, bot ich meine Unterstützung als technischer Mentor an.