11/2016 – Sustainable Sounds Good – Article in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten

Founder Portrait

Sustainability Sounds Good

Jens Gieseler, 30.11.2016 – 00:00 Uhr

Family man Rainer Brang was simply annoyed – with the disposable toys of his son. So he built a sustainable MP3 player for his child. It was so well received among friends and acquaintances that Brang founded the company Winzki. Now the KfW Bank has named him the Baden-Württemberg Founders’ Champion 2016.

“The award is confirmation for me and my team that we are on the right track,” says the 41-year-old. It has been seven years since the first Hörbert was born. At the time, Brang was looking for an MP3 player for his son but only found cheap plastic models. Therefore, the software developer built a wooden box the size of a child’s shoe box, drilled holes for speakers, buttons, and eleven keys, and assembled it all with a handle and a circuit board.

Focusing on One Product

The soundbox became a business idea when more and more friends and relatives found the retro-look player appealing. Tinkerer Brang began to produce the small beech wood boxes in limited quantities. Orders quickly doubled. In 2011, Brang went all out. He invested 50,000 euros of his own money to start the company Winzki GmbH & Co. KG and produced the music player in series.

From the beginning, the newcomer focused on a single-product strategy. “Those who send too many horses into the race quickly lose track,” says the software developer. His motto: “Find the right customers for your product, not vice versa.” The concept works. So far, the Swabians have sold 7,500 Hörberts from their headquarters in Frickenhausen to eleven countries. 14 employees, including a carpenter and an electronics developer, assemble each player by hand on 650 square meters. Subsequently, colleagues check the audio players for appearance and function, ensuring quality. This year alone, the team is producing 6,000 Hörberts, twice as many as the previous year. Currently, it is peak season for shipping, as many give the Hörbert to children and grandchildren for Christmas. This year, Winzki aims for a turnover of one million euros. In 2017, 12,000 units are expected to be produced.

The company aims to effect sustainability. Instead of plastic, the housing is made of beech, poplar, and birch, naturally from regenerative forestry. Three-quarters of the components come from Germany, many directly from Baden-Württemberg. For this reason, the Hörbert at 239 euros is not a bargain “and is currently only interesting for about 25 specialized retailers in Switzerland and Germany,” reports the Winzki CEO.

The founder notices that three-quarters of new customers buy on the recommendation of an acquaintance. To fuel this activity, he and his marketing team are developing a finely tuned strategy of new outreach and customer retention: Every order triggered by a friend’s friendly elbow nudge is rewarded by Winzki with a Hörbert T-shirt. Clever: because the yellow shirt stands out, leading parents, the wearer, and potential new customers to engage in conversation.

Five years pass in which Brang evolves from being self-employed to an entrepreneur with personnel responsibilities. “It is essential for founders to recognize development stages and adapt organizational structures,” he explains. For several months, the team has been building internal roles like quality management. Often, certain changes go unnoticed in daily business. Noticing these requires an outside view. The necessary distance and calm are found by the creator during the annual summer vacation and conversations with other entrepreneurs.

Wooden Music Box at MoMA in New York

However attentive a founder may be to their company, unexpected obstacles can quickly overturn business plans. The Hörbert team initially underestimated the pitfalls of the international electronics business. Disposal fees, registration deadlines, licenses, and GEMA fees complicate the export of the MP3 player. There is no cross-border regulation. Depending on the nation, the costs incurred before the first Hörbert is shipped range from a few hundred to well over 1,000 euros. “Good thing I didn’t know that at the time of founding,” says Brang. Meanwhile, an external service provider manages these tricky tasks. Nonetheless, the entrepreneur must accept that, for instance, customers from the USA cannot currently be served due to national import regulations for cost reasons.

And this despite Hörbert having already impressed 38,000 visitors at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The wooden music box was featured there in an art lab under the motto: “Touch, Try, Use.” It is painful to reject two US inquiries per week, says Brang. Yet such complications do not deter the tinkerer: “We will continue to shape our company together so that it is geared for future growth.”

Link to the article on StN online:

Sustainability Sounds Good