From studies to start-up: Founding a company for more sustainability with industrial engineering

Improving the carbon footprint of companies for a greener future: the start-up greenable has developed software for this purpose - with success. The solution is now being used in companies. And the team has also grown: in addition to the four founders, there are now seven working students. It all started at RPTU, as Alexander David from greenable explains.

Alex, when did you realise that you wanted to start a company?

Alexander David: It all started with Patrick Kölsch. His idea was to enable medium-sized manufacturing companies to better record, reduce and report their carbon footprint. At the time, he was working at Prof. Dr Jan Aurich's Department of Production Engineering and Business Organisation (FBK) at the Faculty of Mechanical and Process Engineering at RPTU.

There was nothing like this before?

Alexander David: There was, but companies previously had to use different and complex software from different service providers for each of their measurements or build something themselves in Excel. Be it to track the transport routes of production materials or to document the material type of products used. The operation was often not intuitive and took a lot of time, which many companies can hardly afford on a day-to-day basis. As a result, many simply do not record emissions at all. Patrick thought it had to be simpler and quicker and at the same time have a high level of credibility.

In other words, a completely new software was to be launched on the market…

Alexander David: Exactly! In order to realise the idea, Patrick needed expertise from other areas such as programming, marketing and finance. This is where the rest of the founding team came into play: Lucas Hartmann, who had trained as a system administrator at RPTU, later became a trainer himself and went on to study data science and is very familiar with programming, also worked at the FBK department. Patrick also approached me and Viktor Schiller. We knew each other from our studies at RPTU, where we had studied industrial engineering and mechanical engineering together. At the time, I was working at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Viktor was working in product management in industry. Lucas, Viktor and I were convinced by Patrick's idea and saw the potential. And that's how our founding team came about.

What happened once you had the idea and the team?

Alexander David: We also had to ask ourselves this question at the beginning. We didn't really know where to start and what you need to found a start-up. Fortunately, we had active support for our next steps from the start-up office at RPTU.

Katharina, you are a start-up coach at the start-up office. How can you help if, like greenable, you already have an idea and want to found your own start-up?

Katharina Neitzel: The start-up office supports start-ups at every stage of development - from the initial idea to the successful foundation. If a concrete idea already exists, we help to refine it, work out the business model and find the right funding. For funding programmes such as the EXIST start-up grant in particular, we support start-ups through the entire application process: from concept development and formal application to coordination with funding bodies. We also offer strategic coaching and networking with potential partners from business and science.

Where did you start with greenable? How can we imagine your support?

Katharina Neitzel: At greenable, we started in the pre-foundation phase by supporting the team with the application for the EXIST business start-up grant. In concrete terms, this meant putting the business idea into a form that was eligible for funding and clearly identifying the level of economic and technological innovation. After approval, we supported greenable during the funding period by organising regular strategy meetings and networking with relevant contacts. Our aim was to ensure that the team was not only financially secure, but also optimally prepared for the start-up in terms of content and structure.

You launched greenable three years ago. How do companies now use your software and how has the response been?

Alexander David: Who supplies the material? Where is the supplier based? What material is supplied? Which machines consume how much energy in the entire production process? Our customers feed our software with all important data such as this. From this, the software calculates the CO2 footprint, including transport emissions, with just a few clicks and entries. This enables companies to recognise in which process steps they can make improvements to reduce their carbon footprint. In the long term, there should be full transparency for products and a Digital Product Passport (DPP), a kind of file for products that accompanies the entire product life and is enriched with more and more information. In this way, products can be made more recyclable. Our software is required and used for various applications, particularly in the area of quality and sustainability management. Whether for a few products with manual balancing or for complex product portfolios with automated balancing, such as in mechanical and plant engineering. And the response so far has been great and confirms that we are on the right track with our idea.

To what extent does the knowledge from your studies help you in your day-to-day work?

Alexander David: Lucas completed a Bachelor's degree in Data Science after his apprenticeship. Viktor, Patrick and I studied industrial engineering with mechanical engineering in both our Bachelor's and Master's programmes at RPTU, and Patrick also completed a doctorate. We have all noticed that our studies fundamentally help us to work independently, organise ourselves and approach complex things in a structured way. Above all, the specialised knowledge we gained during our studies helps us to better understand the processes of manufacturing companies. So: How do certain machines work? How do production processes work? We can then translate this into our strategy. We understand the needs and requirements of companies better and can optimise our software accordingly. So our degree programme has given us a very good basis for understanding economics and engineering. In addition, we all worked as student assistants at various departments during our studies. This enabled us to establish valuable contacts with industry and co-operation partners at RPTU, which help us today. 

Speaking of helping others: What advice do you have for anyone who wants to start a business?

Alexander David: We have experienced incredible highlights in recent years. Whether it's sitting at the notary's office and suddenly having your own start-up with your signature. Or the financing round that gives you a great feeling because investors believe in our idea. But there were also low points. Customers have cancelled and a lot of things have been called into question. But the belief in the idea motivates us to keep going and not give up. I would therefore give anyone who wants to set up a company a tip: get feedback from customers and partners early on. Then you will know what is really needed and can get even more out of the idea. And very importantly: stay focussed, never lose sight of your goal and find a team of great people with whom you want to work on your vision. Then you'll succeed!