Company BluNick GbR

Founders Nicholas Shoopinsky, Urs Bludau

Founding date October 29, 2021

Industry and company Online marketing & fashion

What drives you? What is your motto?

Sustainable fashion and digital excellence for a better world.

Our drive: style, fairness, change.

Our motto: beauty with purpose, online and offline.

What isyour start-up about and what is special about it?

When the next lockdown was declared in the winter of 2020, we were both still deep into competitive swimming and had the opportunity to continue training thanks to the support of the city of Wiesbaden.

Unfortunately, many of our friends and fellow swimmers were not so happy, so we came up with the idea of the swimming advent calendar. We put a short workout online every day with top national and international athletes, bringing training to people's homes. Out of necessity, we came up with an idea that would take us even further.

What are your first successes?

2021 - the first publication of the swimming advent calendar, as many sports facilities were closed during Covid, we brought the sport to everyone's home and created an advent calendar with daily fitness exercises.

2023 - Founding UnMondo We recently founded the fair fashion brand UnMondo. We donate 10% of all profits to animal welfare and environmental protection projects.

What is your professional background?

Nicholas Shoopinsky:

After training as a marketing communications specialist, I completed my degree in "Media IT and Management" at Mainz University of Applied Sciences. During my studies, I gained valuable experience as a project manager at iMi over a period of 4 years. I then decided to move to R+V, where I continue to work as a project manager.

Urs Bludau:

After my dual studies in business informatics in Dresden, I decided to switch to iMi and moved to Wiesbaden. There I completed my Master's degree in IT Management while working and rose to become Head of E-Commerce at iMi. After completing my master's degree, I moved to the Fissler Group, where I now work as an IT project and demand manager.

What prompted you to set up your own company?

After the success of the swimming advent calendar, friends and acquaintances kept approaching us and wanted to have websites and web stores built. That was the concrete trigger for us to start our own business.

We were already interested in fashion and sustainability at the time, so we spent a long time working on a concept to immerse ourselves in this world.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors?

We took the first step ourselves back then, but we always had help from those around us along the way.

Whether it was family, partners or friends, everyone always supported us and was on hand with ideas and advice.

How did you experience the first few days as a founder?

First and foremost, unfortunately, there is a lot of bureaucracy to deal with in Germany. Registering a business, applying for a tax number and all these little things you weren't even aware of.

After that, however, you quickly learn to become more independent and take things into your own hands, and when an idea works, you are naturally full of emotion.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?

The biggest challenge was the organizational and bureaucratic effort involved in setting up the company. In addition to registrations and permits, there were also regulations such as data protection and general terms and conditions to deal with. Thanks to hard work and professional advice, we overcame these hurdles.

How do you draw attention to your company? What is your best marketing idea?

In terms of marketing, we are currently working on the basis of acquaintances and our immediate environment. We also rely on influencers and social media campaigns to promote our UnMondo fashion brand.

Our presence on social media and in newspapers has already generated a positive response. In the near future, we will also be represented in the first stores in Wiesbaden.

How did you finance your start-up?

We paid for everything out of our "own pocket". We didn't use any third-party funding and wanted to do everything ourselves.

What dream would you still like to realize?

Our dream is for our fair and sustainable fashion to be seen and worn throughout Germany.

We want to make the world a little better with our fashion and can really make a difference with the help of fashion and environmentally conscious consumers!

Please complete the following sentence: If we had more time, we would...

... work even more intensively on sustainable projects and continue to promote our vision of a fair world.

What is your special tip: What would you recommend to founders?

Start with something small in an area that you are familiar with, like swimming for us. From there, the ideas and opportunities will come naturally!