I've grown up and lived ever since in Rosenheim, a beautiful, small city right at the foot of the alps. It's always been an economic center for the region, and in recent years, digital industries and services have increased a lot.

This is supported by the city and county. Among lots of offerings for businesses, they're hosting the bi-annual Gründerpreis Rosenheim (Founders Price). This competition is aimed to support local startups and small businesses to gain traction. Although it's not strictly aimed for digital only, over half of the participants in the current round are from this group.

Over the last months, many events have taken place where founders could learn the basics of starting and operating a successful business. Courses included topics such as finances, legal, but also marketing, corporate design and how to write a convincing business plan.

My company, DanglIT GmbH, which was founded just last year, currently takes part. DanglIT is focusing on providing solutions for the building industry, such as working with digital building models, data exchange and interoperability scenarios and cloud services.

Last Friday, the final company presentations of the business plans took place. There, I had the opportunity to present my company to a group of experienced professionals from the region. The slide in the picture shows the weekly active users of WebGAEB, where I managed to increase the users from around 200 per week to almost 500 in January (with a small dip around Christmas, where there's little activity for a B2B app).

Personally, I've learned a lot in the last weeks and made great, new contacts. I've gotten valuable feedback and insights into running a successful business.

Thanks to everyone involved for making such a great platform possible!