In November, 600 young entrepreneurs took part in the Startup Challenge organised by Radio Bayern 3, in which successful young entrepreneur Christopher Obereder offered a total of 300,000 euros for "innovations with real development potential". The big winners: brothers Marc and Patrick Grübener with their new energy bar called "Vollgas". We asked Marc Grübener how this great success came about and what the future holds for the still small company.
BIKE: Congratulations! 150,000 euros in funding from a start-up professional who started out as a small app programmer himself and has already made it onto the Forbes 30 list in California's Silicon Valley. Where does Obereder see your great potential, as there are already plenty of energy bars on the market?
Marc: The Vollgas bar is an organic vegan energy bar made from purely natural ingredients with a caffeine boost from matcha and guarana. In contrast to caffeine from coffee, the effect lasts for up to six hours and the sudden down after the high, as we know it from coffee, does not occur. We wanted a bar with high-quality ingredients that you would normally mix into a good muesli, but to go. In contrast to many competitors on the market, Vollgas bars are easy to chew and swallow even during strenuous physical exertion and, above all, do not stick to the packaging. As you can see from the clear list of ingredients: We have completely dispensed with hidden sugars or additives. Chris Obereder thought that this set our concept apart from the competition. "An energy drink to chew on, but healthy," he said. He was particularly impressed by the fact that we actually developed the bar for our own use and are fully behind the product. The name "Vollgas" was the icing on the cake for him.
The name will certainly stand out on the shelf. How did you come up with it?
Marc: My brother suddenly thought of it out of nowhere while running. The name sums it up perfectly, also in terms of our commitment. So we didn't discuss it any further.
Speaking of your brother: you both came up with the bar idea at practically the same time, is that right?
Yes, curiously enough, we were both very differently motivated. I've been a passionate cyclist myself for 17 years and have tried a wide variety of bars and gels during races. Every time I struggled with stomach problems or couldn't swallow the bars. At the BIKE Transalp 2019, it got to the point where I was only able to finish the fourth stage with great determination and agony due to severe stomach cramps and lack of strength. After this experience, I only had bars of my own design. I wanted a bar that was easy to digest and tasty. I didn't want it to stick to the packaging and of course I wanted it to give me a good push in terms of performance.
At the same time, my brother had already started baking himself. He was looking for an alternative energy boost for long car journeys because he realised that all the sugar and artificial additives in commercially available energy drinks gave him a real hangover the next day.
At some point, we happened to talk about the transom issue on the phone and we realised that we were working on the same construction site for different reasons.
And then you got together in the kitchen and just mixed something together?
Not together, but individually, because I live in North Rhine-Westphalia and my brother lives on Lake Ammersee. We discussed the ingredients we wanted on the phone, calculated nutritional values and shredded the whole thing in a food processor until the appliances ran hot. The big challenge was to precisely coordinate the recipes and processing steps in order to achieve the same result so far apart. In winter 2019/20, we then had the first prototypes, which we were able to distribute to marathon and enduro biker friends. The feedback from the testers helped us enormously in our further development and at some point we were told: "This bar should be available to buy in exactly the same way." When Patrick came up with the name, the first Vollgas Kakao bar was born.
And then you marched up to a production company, put the recipe on the table and said: do it?
Unfortunately, it wasn't quite that easy. We commissioned a company in northern Germany, but we couldn't visit them in person because of coronavirus. So we emailed the recipe and sent them our sample bars. Then the disillusionment: same ingredients, same recipe, but: different result. We had to change the recipe again for large-scale production in order to end up with the same bar. In large-scale production, it makes a big difference whether you use whole or ground linseed. The order in which the ingredients are added is also important for the flavour. A few test bars went back and forth until we dared to say: OK, now 18,000 of them.
And what's next for you now? Chris Obereder said on the radio that he would not only help you with 150,000 euros, but also with marketing strategy and his worldwide contacts?
Chris will work out the exact business plan with us over the next two weeks. Based on the post-money valuation of 462,500 euros, Chris now has 32.4 per cent of the company shares. After Europe, he sees the greatest opportunities in the USA. That would be amazing and "full throttle" sounds pretty good too. Chris would prefer it if we were to dedicate ourselves to the company full-time. But the 12,000 bars sold so far aren't enough to feed two families. My brother will therefore continue to work as a web designer and I as a mechanical engineer. However, the food processor is already spinning again: our next project will be a vegan recovery bar with very interesting, effective proteins.
Gitta Beimfohr
Editor
