When you hear the stories of how Steve Jobs and Elon Musk came up with their business ideas, you almost get the impression that an idea can only be good if it originated in a quirky place. Our location, the Gründerzentrum in Neu-Ulm, on the other hand, was a bit more luxurious.
Fascinating presentations, motivated mentors, delicious food, and many innovative minds transformed the TFU into a creative hub brimming with business ideas—ranging from digital receipts to a food-sharing app for students.
Friday evening, after a long day at the university, we were anything but ready to come up with a business idea, let alone consider actually putting it into action. Well, there we were anyway, sitting in the audience at InnoWeekend. After all, we’d bought our tickets right away when our classmates Tim and Mona announced that sales were about to start. We were still in the middle of the “semester break grind,” and on top of that, our bachelor’s thesis—and with it, the end of our student life at Neu-Ulm University—was drawing ever closer.
So what to do? Hoping for a flash of inspiration, we’d signed up for InnoWeekend back then. When we arrived, we were greeted with custom-designed T-shirts, pizza, and positive vibes. Anyone with an idea was allowed to present it and recruit team members for the weekend. The pitches were amazing! The enthusiasm and great ideas from the other participants really sparked our interest, and we were curious to see what the next two days would bring.
The plan was to jump on board with an idea and get a little taste of it. But there was something else. Christina had an idea. However, nothing had been prepared—no script had been written, and no strategy had been worked out. Still, there was an inner voice within us—some call it intuition, others a gut feeling—that suggested it might actually be a good idea. Christina’s inner voice seemed to be screaming so loudly that Tim could tell just by looking at her that she had an idea
that needed to be voiced. Thanks to Tim’s insight into human nature and Christina’s courage, we’ve now had the opportunity to write this article and report on the weekend.
Our business idea? A “soil exchange.” Not exactly glamorous, but lucrative. The construction industry isn’t just a male-dominated field—it’s also pretty complicated if you’ve never had any exposure to it. So we spent the entire Friday evening and Saturday diving deep into our research.
What do earthwork contractors do? How much does it cost to haul soil to a landfill? How many trucks are on the road? How can you reduce fine dust emissions? Is there even a need for our idea? With the help of great mentors, countless Post-its, and diagrams, we got closer and closer to understanding this topic. The more we understood the scenario, the more enthusiastic we became.
Huge dimensions opened up before us. More precisely, several hundred thousand cubic meters of soil. Our goal is to make soil transport more sustainable and effective.
The current scenario: Construction site A excavates soil and transports it to a landfill. This incurs high costs. Construction site B needs soil and obtains it from the landfill. Due to a lack of communication between companies and across municipalities, unnecessary trips are made between construction sites and landfills. On our platform,
, construction sites can post listings for their excess or shortage of soil and are matched with the appropriate construction site.
All day Saturday, we worked on our business model, received valuable tips from mentors, and were inspired by keynote speakers. With plenty of coffee, matcha, and motivation, we “made ourselves comfortable” with a whiteboard and lots of bright colors.
Here, we were able to let our ideas run free and work toward our shared goal: the pitch on Sunday evening. On Sunday, we faced the challenge of transforming the knowledge we’d acquired and the relatively complex subject matter into an easy-to-understand pitch. Filling the required four minutes with the right content and focusing on the essentials to convince the seven jury members wasn’t easy for us at first. After hours of preparation and several rehearsals, we were able to present our concept in a visual and simplified way.
Pitching Time!!!
Our knees were shaking before our pitch. But after the first few words, we got into a “flow” that even the jury’s questions couldn’t stop. Afterward, we were relieved and satisfied that everything had gone smoothly. When we also took first place, our joy and excitement knew no bounds. That was mainly due to the prizes. A workshop weekend in Penzberg at crescado GmbH and the opportunity to pitch at Innolution Valley are a wonderful preview of our project’s future.
We are very pleased that such an event was organized in Neu-Ulm, thereby actively supporting the “Founders of Tomorrow.” We would like to take this opportunity to once again extend our heartfelt thanks to TFU, the sponsors, and the organizers for this successful weekend. We will cherish these positive memories for a long time to come.
Christina, Maja, Theresa, and Viola
