We invited Joern Menninger for a quick Q&A about his side project and his vision about our start-up ecosystem. Joern Menninger is a Senior Consultant at Deloitte and barely three years ago he co-founded Startuprad.io the English channel of startupradio.de. He and his team work hard to bring the news from Germany, Europe, and International startup scene.
A most follow for every startup lover – Podcast Startuprad.io
1 – When and why did you decide to start Startupradio?
I was originally asked by a friend to join the initial recording of a new podcast of another friend (Kirill) as a one time guest. This was the first recording of startupradio.de in July 2013. I connected pretty fast with Kirill and the rest is history. Btw we met in person only after producing Startupradio.de for more than 6 months.
2 – Share with us the best moment so far.
Well, best moments? There are many, especially interesting people in the podcast are great. But what is always great is seeing so many enthusiastic people like on the startup weekends working till late at night. I was also staying late and really enjoyed it.
If you really want to know what our startup news recordings are like …. listen to our news recording here https://www.youtube.com/
3 – How do you see the trend of Podcasts in general and what´s your experience so far at Startuprad.io?
Podcast has been no big topic when we started out 2013. Ever since they became more popular and more professional. I would love to say …. us too, but unfortunately, we do it as a hobby and our means to influence the recording of the other side (most of the time a Skype call) is very limited. So we had every kind of background noise in it (drilling, sledgehammer in the background, in our news there are on a regular base NY police sirens from Christian and so on). Now there is increasing interest in podcasts and especially in Startupradio (both, the English and the German channel), that place us on a regular (bi-monthly) basis in the German Top 100 Podcast Download Charts. The more people listen to podcasts the better.
4 – Particularly about Frankfurt, what do you think is our weakness and strength as start-up hub?
Weakness is surely price and competition. Employees and rents are expensive, especially in the city center. Competition for talent (IT and business side) is strong from banks, asset managers, consultancies and the EU institutions in town (ECB, Insurance Oversight, ECB Bank Supervision) and the like. But those companies and institutions are at the same time a big pond of potential talent. There are more than 37.000 consultants and 75.000 bank employees (plus all the freelancers and other service providers). Now just imagine 1% of those people decide to set up a company …
- http://www.frm-united.com/
en/frankfurtrheinmain-as-a- business-location/ standortvorteile-branchen/ management-consultancy.html - http://www.frm-united.com/
en/frankfurtrheinmain-as-a- business-location/ standortvorteile-branchen/ financial-sector.html
5 – Can you name your favorite startup in Frankfurt? or 3 if you prefer?
Favorite startup? I don’t think there is a favorite, but I think some are on interesting paths (savedroid with their AI approach, Blockchain Helix trying to make blockchain into a useable product, Tatcraft with their 3d printing abilities and many more)
6 – How do you think the ecosystem will develop in the short-medium and long run?
I think Frankfurt will profit from the Brexit and initiatives like joinmainland.com will lure many startups to Frankfurt. In a few years, the most exciting fintechs will be mostly founded in Frankfurt. I do think the city of Frankfurt is right now way too much focused on banks and their service providers and don’t think further. This may hurt the hub in the long run.
7 – Any tips for other entrepreneurs?
Listen to startupradio 🙂
8 – Any tips for expats?
Join many Meetups and follow Rhein-Main-Startups.com, as well as hallofrankfurt.de they do a good job in posting interesting events. Go there and meet people. This is the best and fastest way to integrate yourself in the community and generate opportunities.
9 – You are always updated and a great source of information, but which additional channels would you recommend following?
In English, there are many good blogs like Tech.eu and eu-startups.com cover the European startup scene. Frankfurt doesn’t appear on a regular basis, but it will in the future.
10 – Any upcoming changes/surprises into your podcast format?
Yes, we will have a few new audio/video formats towards the end of the year. I can already say that the video content will be posted here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Startupradio and the audio versions of those on our podcast http://www.startuprad.io/. We will surely try to get more English content to make the Frankfurt startup scene more likely to be noticed. Think cybersecurity and blockchain… I would like to add that within a month (we did not any kind of advertising) there are already more than 250 subscribers of our English YouTube channel, so there is interest in the content.
If you want, follow Joern and Startuprad.io on Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joernmenninger/
https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/4837115/
And feel free to inbox him with questions. He is a very open networker.
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