It can often be observed in the private and family environment: new smartphones have to be set up or sending e-mails via the tablet does not work. Digital progress is rapid and for many people it is not possible to follow it completely. The CyberLab team for student computer assistance wants to narrow the “digital skills gap”. In the interview, we spoke to the student Computerhilfe founder Simon Hess and asked him the well-known ten Gründerview questions.
Your startup in a tweet?
Problems with a digital device? We’ll come over.
How did your business idea come about; what was the initial spark?
During my college days, I made extra money by helping people with their computer problems. My co-founder at the time and I thought that this could benefit more people: other students to “earn something extra” and people who need help with digital problems.
How big is your team, who is part of it and how did you find each other?
We are currently 4 students in Munich, one of whom is me as the founder, the others take on customer appointments. There is also a student in Berlin who, in addition to appointments, also takes care of acquiring new customers. So we start in parallel in Munich and Berlin. We found each other through the classic online job portals.
Who benefits from your idea and why?
We mainly have inquiries from private individuals and sole proprietors. They are people who find themselves in situations or roles where they need or want to use digital technology, but whose real job is something else. In the case of a private person, this can be, for example, preparing the smartphone in order to switch to a new one, or for a freelance photographer, backing up her photo stock on a NAS system. So we relieve people – you could say we are the IT service for individuals.
What does your everyday work look like – is there even such a thing as “everyday life”?
No, of course there is no everyday life at such an early stage. There is still a long way to go to the product that we see in our vision, which will not yet be part of everyday life.
Why did you choose an accelerator like CyberLab?
The CyberLab gave us extremely efficient access to knowledge that is essential for founding a startup. At the same time, we got to know many other exciting startups – this exchange was also a major reason for the application.
In which startup would you like to get an insight into the everyday work?
In OpenAI, due to the current hype about the chatbot “ChatGPT”. What does that do to the people there? How does the mood change, does it change at all? Is the stress increasing? Or is it already celebrated?
What’s the next big step?
We are currently working on a more automated product that is scheduled for release in 2023. Together with intensified marketing, this should make the market throughout Germany accessible to us.
Which stumbling blocks did you have to climb over when founding the company?
During the start-up phase, I was still in a semester abroad, so the first few months of working together were challenging. After my return, my co-founder had to retire from the startup for personal reasons, so it took me some time to transition to running the company alone.
Do you have any advice/tips for other founders?
Some questions should be clarified right at the beginning in intensive, short periods of time. For example, you can work through one or two questions for a week. Examples of such questions would be: What is our vision? Will there be customers or how many? What is the competition like? What can go wrong? Do we need financial support and if so, what are the options for obtaining it?
About student computer help:
We offer a platform that people with digital problems can turn to. The problem goes to all students at the same time and they then select a problem that they can solve and either send the solution directly or make an appointment on site. The platform model reduces costs compared to self-employed IT consultants and thus enables more people to participate digitally.