Company: Vicosmo GmbH

Founder: Jasmin and Volker Kettenbach (married couple)

Date of foundation: January 15, 2017

Industry and company: Software development and data service

What drives you? What is your motto?

"You get a head start in life if you start where others start talking." -J.F. Kennedy

"Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right" - Peter Drucker

We tackle the difficult tasks for our customers: we research and develop software for them that enables them to remain well informed and make the right decisions in the future.

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

Verivinum is the world's first and unique database service for wine and sparkling wine in supermarkets and discount stores.

The service was developed specifically to meet the needs of businesses in the wine and sparkling wine industry and uses state-of-the-art AI and big data algorithms to provide customers' sales, marketing and business development teams with data-driven industry insights - for faster and more targeted growth.

What are your first successes?

The successful completion of our service after years of research and development.

The positive feedback from customers in the industry and, of course, the first customer. The establishment of a young, friendly and motivated team that has now been developing software and filling the database with data for several years.

What is your professional background?

Jasmin Kettenbach:

I studied beverage technology in Geisenheim and have spent the last twenty-five years working in the wine industry in purchasing and sales.

Volker Kettenbach:

I have a degree in business informatics and have actually been self-employed all my life - first as a freelancer, now as an entrepreneur.

What prompted you to set up your own company?

Vicosmo is already our second company. In 2015, we founded Casa Kettenbach, a boarding house in a completely renovated, listed villa, which was the subject of a founder portrait published by the city of Wiesbaden in 2018.

Following the continued success of Casa Kettenbach, we decided to move on and found a company that brings together our two areas of expertise - wine and software.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors?

With the experience of our first start-up, it was of course easier. We also had the support of an advisory board with expertise from science, law and industry.

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

It's a great feeling when you see how the product grows and flourishes and at some point you realize that the risk and work are paying off.

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

Corona was a big problem: on the one hand, awareness of the importance of digital solutions for sales work has grown during this time, but on the other hand, the willingness to invest has fallen sharply due to the uncertainty and has not yet returned to the old level.

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

Thanks to the founder's many years of experience in the industry, it is comparatively easy for us to gain access to potential customers.

We also rely on a multi-channel strategy, which includes a YouTube channel on which we want to provide interesting industry insights in the future.

How did you finance your start-up?

To date, we are 100% self-financed. On the one hand, through a capital injection at the beginning, which came from our own savings. Secondly, through a strategy of bootstrapping and cross-financing from the founder's other development projects. We have also taken advantage of smaller funding projects.

What dream would you still like to realize?

We would like to open our own branch in California in order to be closer to the major customers in America - and of course to the great wine-growing regions there.

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

...read more and listen to music!

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

Especially when you come from an employee's life, you are initially confronted with many topics that you have never dealt with before - such as finances and bookkeeping. It's important to ask for help and accept it.

The Chamber of Industry and Commerce offers a lot, and you can also get support from RKW. We recommend taking advantage of everything that is available!