1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, both at work and leisure.

I am currently an initiator, co-founder and business developer of the fintech startup Coinmat with a great team and more great business idea. With Coinmat we are in the seed phase with a MVP+. Since 2011 I am self employed and founder of different companies in different business spaces. 

Personally I am an open mindested person, who want to learn and to have fun every day with my family and friends. I am a big visionary with a big intrinsic motivation to create something valuable. I am a doer and not only a speaker.

I have some bad habitudes: I am a not good looser. I always expect too much from the people around me. I am nearly never satisfied.

This bad habitudes help me every day in my business carrier and helped me in the past in my sports carrier to a lot of success including 7 German Champion Titles in Motorsport and 2 German Vice-Champion titles in cycling. 

 

2. Which services do you sell and who are your competitors?

We are the worlds first operator of crypto ATMs with a fully financial license and ATMs with a transaction speed under 10 seconds. We will settle up 5.000 ATMs worldwide to get world market leader.

The key factor of our startup is our self developed cash flow transaction system, which allows us to get a license and to realize lightning fast transactions. 

Worldwide exist some competitors. The most have no license. All of them have transaction speeds from 2 minutes up to 24 hours.

 

3. How did you get your startup idea and how did you go about launching it?

I decided during a visit in the sauna with my friend David Camara to build up a startup together. We searched round about 2 months for the right business idea until we found the idea of Coinmat. This idea seemed for us most attractive and interesting.

We made at first a rough business plan to verify the business idea. After this point we decided fast to go all in and to launch it. Than we searched the right place to create our company, we looked for the external partners we needed and than we began to work 24/7/365 for our baby Coinmat.

By every decision we did we was verifying the best decision to have a maximum serious and long-term business even it was more hard and more expensive. We knew that a harder way is harder to be copied by others.

 

4. How did you finance your startup, and what learnings would you like to share from the fund-raising journey?

The initial financing was by ourselves. All other financing we raised over a family&friends-pool until now. What we learned on the fund-raising-journey is, that make it so easy as possible. Give the investors a quick overview over your business and don’t go to deep inside the technical behaviors behind. Tell more about yourself and your team and your vision with your startup. Don’t send to the investors to much documents and descriptions about your project. The investors have first to believe in you before they can believe in the project.

If you speak with professional business angels and VC investors you should be prepared with professional documents and descriptions, which you can prepare also by yourself.

Generally is a good startup a startup which can raise enough funds. And generally fund raising is not like cooking a cake. You must be in the right moment at the right place to speak with the right people. The success depends also on the timing, which is not under full control by yourself. Sometimes investors made maybe one deal one day before or they have in this moment not enough capital to invest. But generally, if you are at the right moment by them, they will maybe invest in your project.

So it depends a lot on the circumstances and you also need a little bit luck. My first sports coach told me always: You must force your luck if you want to win. Same by fund raising.

 

5. What areas within FinTech do you personally find most interesting and why?

Generally I like all areas of FinTech, because I think FinTech hast he power to change the wolrd like the internet or the smartphones did it.

But I am only interested in business models that can generate real added value through the FinTech approach. 

 

6. What opportunities do you see for FinTech startups in Europe, and how can we help? 

On one side, I see a great opportunity, because everybody can build up a startup. On the other side, I see some difficulties for realizing the startups because we have in Europe too much regulations, doubts and we always think too much and long. To build up a successful FinTech Startup you need speed, believers and risky people. To find them is not easy in Europe. 

So you can help by bringing them all together in one place to accelerate the business development. 

 

7. What tip would you like to give FinTech entrepreneurs?

Generally everybody wants a tip, what is totally understandable. But every startup and every entrepreneur is in a different stage, mood, mindset, role ff. So it is not easy to give here a general tip to a single person or startup. 

But there is one secret: That there is no secret!

Everybody cooks only with water. Maybe some entrepreneurs have more experience than others. This will help. So look, that you can add experienced members to your team.

My generally tips – not only to build up a startup – are more about soft skills: Be risky. Be strong. Believe in yourself. Believe in your business idea. Don’t be arrogant. Be open to learn. Be persevering. Be open for pivoting and do not be afraid to succeed.