This blog post refers to an interview for the category "Founder stories: Start-ups made in Bayreuth" with the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation of the University of Bayreuth. Even though our startup cliqe was not founded directly in Bayreuth but in Berlin at the end, its roots can still be traced back to the Bavarian student city where our co-founder Tiên studied in his bachelor's and started his entrepreneurial career. The original article (in German) is reproduced in the following.

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Who are you?

Our startup cliqe was founded by Felippe Wick and Tiên Grünewald.

Felippe brings valuable experience and technical skills as a Full-Stack Developer, which he gained while working at Unicorn-Startup’s such as Trade Republic and Wefox, where he held positions as Product Manager and Solutions Engineer. Previously, he developed a shared calendar community app, successfully launching it on the Apple App Store and Product Hunt. He studied Business Engineering at BHT and TU Berlin for both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees.

Tiên completed his Bachelor's degree in Business Administration with a focus on Innovation & Finance at the University of Bayreuth, and he pursued a Master's degree in Entrepreneurship at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management. Before founding cliqe, he gained experience at three (FinTech) startups in Berlin, Singapore, and Munich, as well as a venture capital firm. In 2021, he founded his first startup "invest wise" to promote financial education.

The team is also complemented by Marketing Manager Gina (ESCP Business School), who has extensive experience as a Content Creator, and interns.

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What is your idea/startup?

We launched cliqe in the summer of 2022 and have since built a platform that primarily enables smaller influencers to collaborate with companies. We are addressing the issue that smaller content creators often lack access to monetization partnerships with brands due to their limited bargaining power, despite delivering audience-targeted content. Previously, this paid sector was reserved for larger influencers.

Social media marketing is becoming increasingly important for companies of all sizes. Cliqe brings together these two parties (micro-influencers and companies) as a matching platform. It allows influencers access to numerous partner programs to monetize their passion, community, and content. On the other hand, it provides brands with straightforward and cost-effective access to a mass of authentic content creators. This is supported by a fair, performance-based compensation structure. In concrete terms, brands only compensate content creators upon successful recommendation of a product or service, leaving behind opaque campaigns with uncertain results.

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What are your strengths and USP?

Our strengths lie primarily in rapid product development and market entry. After validating the underlying problem and idea, and testing it with an initial prototype (MVP per No-Code) onboarded over 250 brands, our co-founder Felippe developed the entire platform in software code in early 2023. We launched a beta web app and tested it with our early users in a closed beta phase. We incorporated user feedback into an open beta version and onboarded more users. This allowed us to gather valuable traction and user feedback for our next steps in a short span of time.

Our unique feature is the combination of a personal "bio page" along with direct access to over 250 brands on an affiliate basis. A "bio page" serves as a landing page for influencers, enabling them to conveniently gather and share their content and recommendations, such as links to websites, blogs, videos, podcasts, specific brands, or products, with their social media community in their profile description. Cliqe allows creators to easily create individual bio links in just a few minutes, complete with legal compliance, including an imprint and GDPR information. Additionally, we connect nano- and micro-influencers (around 1,000 to 20,000 followers) with companies like Hello Fresh, Lufthansa, or Snipes. Content creators are compensated based on success, such as a successful account opening or purchase by the brands. Cliqe provides an all-in-one solution for content creators and brands, offering ad material, tracking, reporting, and payment processing.

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Do you have tips for other start-ups or those interested in founding a startup?

An important lesson from our startup journey is that at the beginning, one should have the courage to just start. Nowadays, it often doesn't require much and often no (significant) investments. Along the way, things will change and/or evolve, so it's recommended to start as early as possible to make mistakes, meet relevant people, and recognize exciting problems or ideas.

Once a promising problem or idea is identified, it's advisable to test it as quickly as possible before investing unnecessary resources like time and money into product development without knowing whether it will be accepted by the market (achieving "Product-Market-Fit"). Instead, it's better to start by testing your hypotheses with simple surveys or a "Minimum-Viable-Product" (MVP) to determine, for example, if a specific problem truly exists and if potential customers are willing to pay for its solution.

Moreover, one should not underestimate the value of a good network when starting a business. While it may sound trivial, access to expertise and resources through a strong network can save entrepreneurs a lot of headache and greatly simplify life. We have had very positive experiences with our network on our journey so far. Without the network we built during our Bachelor's, Master's, and in the startup scene, founding our first company, obtaining expert feedback, developing an initial MVP, attracting customers and partners, and finding the first employees would have been much more challenging. In general, a solid network can help avoid mistakes and unnecessary work on many of these topics.

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