Great response to the first goWo*Man online talk at HfG

Lena Jüngst from air up was invited to the kick-off event of the talk series goWo*Man. Lena Jüngst is a product desi­gner and co-founder of air up: a drin­king bottle that gives water flavor through scent alone. She and her co-founder Tim Jäger desi­gned the first proto­type of the air up bottle in 2016 as part of their bachelor degree in product design at the Hoch­schule für Gestal­tung in Schwä­bisch Gmünd. Supported by the EXIST Start-up Grant and promi­nent inves­tors Frank Thelen and Ralf Dümmel, they founded their own start-up in Munich toge­ther with three other friends. The young company now employs more than 70 people and has already sold over 400,000 starter sets of the inno­va­tive air up hydra­tion system since the product laun­ched in August 2019. The company is curr­ently one of the fastest growing start-ups in Germany. For this very reason, Lena is excited to share her expe­ri­ence with students at HfG:

„I was very pleased to be able to give the talk as part of the EXIST grant at the HfG Schwä­bisch Gmünd. Espe­ci­ally because the foun­da­tion for air up was laid at the HfG and we were very grateful for the scho­lar­ship at that time. I am convinced that many more ideas and proto­types with great poten­tial are lying dormant at the univer­sity and hope that more design students will also dare to take the step into self-employment.“

The Hoch­schule für Gestal­tung laun­ched the goHfG start-up offen­sive in June of this year. With the start-up offen­sive, HfG students are sensi­tized to the topic of start-ups and supported with various measures on their way to beco­ming start-ups. The syste­matic sensi­tiza­tion, quali­fi­ca­tion and active start-up advice are based on diffe­rent modules, such as goScou­ting, goWork­shop, goMen­to­ring, goEdu­ca­tion, goCon­nec­ting, goMen­to­ring or goWo*Man.

Lena capti­vated her audi­ence with an exci­ting online presen­ta­tion. Almost 150 students listened enthu­si­a­sti­cally to the founder, who presented her inte­res­ting path to entre­pre­neur­ship. Lena had not origi­nally planned to found a company. As a product desi­gner, she first went to Philips in Amsterdam after her studies to complete an intern­ship there. She then had the option of going to Shanghai and conti­nuing to work for Philips there. In the mean­time, however, a good friend and studied food tech­no­lo­gist of Lena deve­loped the proto­type of the air up bottle further. And so the team ventured into company forma­tion in February 2018. The market launch of the air up drin­king bottle followed in July 2019. After just two months, 80,000 starter sets were sold out. Since fall 2020, the company has also been opera­ting abroad. The air up drin­king bottle has recently become available in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

During the presen­ta­tion, Lena spoke authen­ti­cally about chal­lenges and stumb­ling blocks she had to over­come as a young entre­pre­neur. For example, the founder mentioned the invol­vement of a busi­ness econo­mist in her team, who helped get the busi­ness plan off the ground, as a very important step. The topic of ​„womens“ posi­tions and the accep­tance of a woman in manage­ment posi­tions“ was also discussed and highlighted.

With many impres­sions and valuable tips for foun­ding a start-up, an impres­sive talk ended, which espe­ci­ally encou­raged poten­tial female foun­ders to deal with the topic of self-employment.