Foundation of the month: AICORN
21.09.2023
Daniela Musial-Lemberg
Founder of the month
Delays and cancelled trains are the order of the day in rail traffic in Germany. Aicorn, a spin-off from KIT, wants to change that and has developed an "ECG for trams".
What does your company stand for?
Full throttle, the joy of experimentation and a pinch of internal bullying to light the fire of creativity!
We want to shake up the rail industry and drive the transport revolution with innovative solutions. To do this, we analyse vehicle data and maintenance information to increase availability. In other words, with our “ECG for rail vehicles”, we want to prevent the “public transport infarction” through a comprehensive data screening and thus enable reliable rail travel.
Where and how did you come up with the bright idea to found the company?
We tried to use the time spent waiting for the train as productively as possible. As you know, you have a lot of time to come up with good ideas. Joking aside ? in the end, a research project in cooperation with the Potsdam public transport company and Siemens for the development of an autonomously driving tram turned out to be the ideal jumping-off point. This project motivated us to look more intensively at the topic of vehicle data.
How did the founding team come together?
A friend said, “Thilo – I was just playing football with two boys: I think you’re a perfect match. Talk to them…” 1 phone call, 1 dinner and 1 formal meeting and we had – at least verbally – said yes to each other ?
My two co-founders used to work for Siemens for a long time and started their own company Codewerk 9 years ago. Codewerk specialises in the implementation of software components in the central vehicle control system for the connection of trades such as powertrain, passenger information system and air conditioning. I did my doctorate in the field of early phase product development and worked as a project manager for interdisciplinary innovation projects. Together we complement each other perfectly! A little insider: internally we only talk about the 3 big squirrels.
Where do you see the hurdles in the start-up process? Where did you get support?
We probably didn’t fare any better here than anyone else. To sum up: German bureaucracy eats up a lot of trees to produce a lot of paper?. Setting up a limited liability company, registering a trademark, hiring employees from abroad, etc. cost a lot of patience at first. Once the bureaucratic hurdles were overcome, we received helpful support from CyberForum and our private network.
What was one of your biggest challenges in the start-up phase?
In the founding phase, our greatest challenge was like an adventurous safari: we started with a curious little monkey, then became fighting lions and now and now we are sprinting like a cheetah through the steppe of entrepreneurship? In the beginning, we ourselves didn’t know exactly what we wanted to stand for and how we wanted to be perceived by customers: Service provider or product provider!? It took us a few months to find our identity, to know how we could best use our potential.
From your point of view, what qualities should you bring with you as a founder?
Perseverance, passion and successfully dealing with uncertainty. If you want to be relaxed, there are many other options ? The nice thing is that with great uncertainty comes a lot of creative freedom. Keeping the focus there and asking what is the next, decisive step, I see as an important foundation.
Moreover, the challenges are of such magnitude that they cannot be overcome alone. It is crucial to admit this to oneself and to others in order to be able to take a step back. Because only in this way can I contribute my best to working together as a team.
Question for our start-up community: Do you have any practical tips for other young entrepreneurs?
Be brave: If you fall, you can get up again. So just go for it and dare. Because the journey itself is the goal. If anyone knew how to do it, there would already be a solution. Therefore, the best time to start up and go full throttle is always “now”. In doing so, it is important to build a strong team that will be with you through thick and thin. Talking to mentors, be it experienced founders or industry experts, helped us and still support us on our journey.
Question for our start-up community: What would you perhaps do/approach differently from today’s perspective?
Seek even stronger contact with the customer right from the start. We have a strong technical background, especially after graduating from KIT. So promoting our own product was a bit far away from us at the beginning. But the close exchange with customers is the only real validation tool.
What are your plans for the future? What are your next big milestones?
Nothing less than world domination in the rail landscape ?
We are in the process of rolling out our solution to more transport operators. This will bring new requirements of hardware provision, customer support and exciting test phases.
Thank you for answering the questions!
Here is the accompanying podcast episode for our start-up of the month aicorn on Spotify.
Have fun listening!
