As Partiri, they took 1st place in the Make It Lean Contest 2020/21 and won €5,000 for their startup.
Their idea of a sharing platform for everyone willing to share items in order to promote sustainable consumption and protect the environment resonated with the founders of Fainin, who pursue the same goal. This led to a merger of the two sharing apps — Partiri is now operating as Fainin to continue driving their sustainable project forward.
We find it exciting to watch teams evolve that have been or still are in contact with the Startup Incubator Berlin. Whether through one of our programs or at our founding competition, the Make It Lean Contest.
That’s why we asked the Partiri/Fainin team a few more questions to learn more about the founders and their project:
How did you become aware of the Make It Lean Contest?
At the time, we participated in the Make It Lean Contest under the name of our former project “Partiri.App”. A friend from the Partiri family pointed us to several contests. Since we focus on a “lean” approach in our IT development and community roadmap, we identified with the competition right from the start. We also calculated our chances of winning to be high given our social, sustainable, and community-oriented business model.
The MILC helped us far beyond the community boost and prize money: the founders of our biggest competitor “Fainin” took notice of us and offered to merge the two sharing apps. We can help them a great deal with community building and marketing, and we benefit from their existing partnerships — such as with insurance providers and payment service providers — as well as their IT infrastructure. True to the Partiri/Fainin principle: a win-win for everyone involved, because #SharingIsTheNewOwning.
How and when did you come together as a startup team?
We launched Partiri.App in November/December 2019. At the beginning we started with surveys and a business plan, but as the project progressed we kept learning continuously, and this summer we are also launching the app under the name “Fainin” – Find Anything In Your Neighbourhood.
Johann and I (Max) know each other from our International Management studies — we had worked together as part of a course and together dreamed of the benefits of a secure sharing community. After we communicated our project a little within our social circle, we were introduced to our IT genius, Kevin. He identified strongly with our dream and was ultimately convinced by our business plan to come on board. Since that day we have grown closer and closer and have already become friends for life.
We also each had the opportunity to write our respective bachelor’s/master’s theses about our project:
- “The Optimal Business Model in the Collaborative Industry” – Maximilian Lehmann
- “Acceptance Characteristics of Sharing Solutions” – Kevin Mattutat
- “Financing Options for Pre-Seed Platforms” – Johann Lißner
The accumulated theoretical knowledge helped us to shape our sharing project as promisingly as possible. It is astounding how many books address the rise of the sharing economy and the advantages of collaborative approaches: for example, Jeremy Rifkin’s “The Zero Marginal Cost Society”, in which he describes how the Internet of Things and collaborative cooperation lead to a decline in global production costs. With this, he prophesies a reorientation of society in favor of a community-oriented society. A dream that truly connects all three of us deeply — with this conviction we gladly emphasize our motto #SharingIsTheNewOwning.
How did you come across the problem that you want to solve with your startup idea?
The idea came to me (Max) after moving from the 105-inhabitant village of “Metzenhausen” to Hamburg. I fell in love with the city immediately, but at first I missed the interpersonal closeness from my home in the Hunsrück region. I quickly identified one key reason for the lesser sense of connection: people in cities don’t know each other. In Metzenhausen, everyone knows everyone. That’s why people support each other. It’s completely normal for the Lehmann family to share things with all the neighbors — for example, the lawnmower and the party equipment for annual birthdays. This leads to communication and further strengthens trust.
Fainin is meant to make exactly that possible all over the world. Creating trust within the sharing community through a secure and automated verification and lending system.”
What is your most important goal in the next 3 months?
We want to release Fainin’s application in a beta version in May 2021 and test and optimize our infrastructure with initial interactions. Fainin should become established within our circle of friends and be gradually completed with additional features. This way we can already kick off our community with a “soft launch” in the summer, and then establish the group function with a “hard launch” and optimized infrastructure. This is intended to be the starting shot for a cluster-like establishment of our network: initially, Fainin will position itself as a sharing network for students at universities, athletes in clubs, and neighbors in districts. This ensures that members have a common local connection and may even become friends through our interaction features.
Who would you like to have a coffee or tea with? Why?
We would love to have a coffee with Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk, and Joe Gebbia. They are the Airbnb founders that hardly anyone believed in at the start. They were told things like “The business model won’t work” or “Would you trust strangers?” But instead of letting that get them down, they simply kept going and realized their vision. We are very inspired by their determination and their belief in creating something big and positive for the world and everyone involved with their startup.
