Nour Idelbi (left) and Joline Reker build an app to help women get home safely GoDaddy / Safespace
It takes a lot of courage to start a business. Especially when you’re very young. “At first I was afraid to start a business,” says 18-year-old Nour Idelbi in an interview with Gründerszene. “But then I understood that there are many successful entrepreneurs who might be just as scared, who are just as excited – but who just go for it.”
And the student from Münster, who is just holding her Abitur certificate in her hands, has pulled through. In 2021, when she was 16, she launched Safespace, an app designed to help young people find their way home safely. To do this, users can contact the police with a click, share their location with friends and rate their sense of security along the way using a traffic light system from green (not dangerous) to red (dangerous). The app has been live since January. According to the founder, several thousand people use it.
But it shouldn’t stop there: Nour Idelbi thinks bigger and wants to build a community that goes beyond the topic of going home. So broaden the term safespace, she says, meaning offering a safe place in the digital world as well. For example, for young people who have fears, stress or even suicidal thoughts – and want to exchange ideas quickly with others digitally. According to the founder, there are still too few offers for this target group. This part of the app is currently under construction. We are “currently in talks with leading companies in the field”.
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Tiktok success for Safespace
But community, the young company can do that: Safespace, for example, has been very successful on Tiktok in the meantime. The videos of the makers – in addition to Nour Idelbi, Joline Reker, who is mainly responsible for social media, was added later – reach 17,000 subscribers. Some of the clips have several hundred thousand views. Some users also gather in Whatsapp groups, sometimes with several hundred members. There they are already exchanging ideas about mental health, making phone calls or simply feeling less alone together.
What the young founder also learned from the startup world is how to make contacts. She didn’t go to a day care center for a one-week school internship – Idelbi sat in on and lent a hand with scene stars Lea-Sophie Cramer and Tina Mueller from Douglas.
Spontaneous internship with Lea-Sophie Cramer and Tina Müller
She asked herself, “What would be the craziest thing I could do? So I wrote to Lea-Sophie Cramer and Tina Müller at Linkedin,” says the founder. The message to the well-known entrepreneurs is said to have been something like: “I think what you do is cool. I find your business interesting. I am currently active in the business sector myself. May I lend a hand with you?”
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For example, she worked on Cramer’s executive coaching for women “10 more in”. For Müller, she got to know various positions at Douglas such as marketing. Idelbi wanted to know: “How do these people work, what does their day look like, what do they pay attention to, how do they speak, how do they enter into negotiations?”
The young founder is also currently in negotiations to collect money for her startup. The original goal was to make the company big by bootstrapping. But with the idea of thinking the startup bigger, it needs additional funds. So far, Safespace has been financed not only by the founders’ own funds, but also by prize money of 10,000 euros from the startup teens, where Safespace won in the “Services & Platforms” category. The young company also took part in the “GoTeam” mentoring program run by the website and domain provider GoDaddy, with, among others, the high-reach social media expert Ann-Katrin Schmitz and Neil Heinisch, the founder of the Gen Z marketing agency Playthehype.
The Safespace creators keep their followers up to date with regular updates. Here Joline Reker presents the office of the startup.
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Investment negotiations with an insurance company
Negotiations for an investment are currently underway with an insurance company. They could integrate the app offer and thus gain access to the younger generation, which could potentially become long-term insurance customers. Regarding the status of the conversation, Nour Idelbi says: “There are sparks on both sides.”
The young adult now has her Abitur in her pocket. Balancing school and startup at the same time went hand in hand with long days. “The start-up takes a lot of time. I often worked until midnight,” says the founder. “I know it’s unhealthy and I’ve tried to let it go but it doesn’t work. I’m trying to bring in more time management now.”
What’s next after high school? First of all, with the last summer holidays, North Rhine-Westphalia is the first federal state to send its students into the summer break or into the next phase of life after graduation. Nour Idelbi is currently considering whether to continue with a classic or a dual degree. But one thing is certain: she will continue to work on her startup.