Grammofy

Head of Product, Co-Design

Grammofy is a streaming service for classical music. Based on a unique tagging- and metadata-system that accounts for the special characteristics of the genre, Grammofy offers its listeners weekly collections of hand-picked classical music accompanied by spoken word introductions and podcasts.

The main challenge designing this product has been the unique style of classical music: How can one incorporate its wealth of information, while simultaneously being accessible and engaging for newcomers? The answer to that question is a platform that visually breaks with the dull conventions of the genre, a player uniquely suited for classical music and information accessible in a layered manner so that both, the uninitiated and the aficionados, can appreciate it equally.

Platforms: Web, iOS
Timeframe: 2015 - Today
Highlights: Featured by Apple, Selected by The Guardian and Der Spiegel as "App of the Month", Loved by Customers (4.5 Stars average)
App Store: Download
Homepage: Take a look

ThingsCon

Co-Founder, Chair

ThingsCon is a leading conference about the future of hardware, connected devices and Internet of Things. In talks, workshops and intimate sessions, an international line-up of top notch speakers covers everything it takes to grow a hardware product from prototype to scaling business.

ThingsCon is contributing to a movement of practitioners who champion shared values like openness, diversity, sustainability and collaboration in all things “connected”.

Started in 2014, ThingsCon rapidly grew beyond Berlin and is now a network that hosts talks and conferences in Amsterdam, London, Shenzen and Milan. Over the years we have seen an amazing line-up of speakers, including Usman Hague, Bruce Sterling, Scott Smith, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Louisa Heinrich, Georgina Voss, Bethany Koby, Matt Webb, Warren Ellis, and many more.

Organizing this has been a wild ride – and something so rewarding that I would happily do it all again.

Constellations

Head of Product, Design

Platforms: Web, Desktop (Cross-Platform)
Timeframe: 2016 - Today
Highlights: Working directly with Labels to build a tool that radically improves their day-to-day work.
User Voices: "Constellations is a user-friendly tool that is changing the way we manage the core of our digital activities."

Constellations is a Data Toolkit built to improve how Labels manages musical information. Specifically designed for industry professionals, Constellations helps them to organize, verify and distribute their Meta-Data.

Especially in "long tail" genres like Jazz and Classical, customers have often problems finding the right tracks because of bad tagging. We have been working close with Managers from Labels to understand why this happens and to learn about their needs when it comes to data management. With Constellations we helped them to work more efficient, failure-free and cost-effective. Goodby Excel, Word and Dropbox.

Knowable & Polymer

Co-Founder, Head of Product, Design

Knowable was a tool for product designers and engineers from all over the world to document and collaborate on building hardware products. Think of it like a Github for the real world: With easy iterations, seamless version control, and efficient team management, knowable brought much of the thinking of software development to the hardware world.

Knowable was also accompanied by a sister site, Polymer, which provided an easy way to find people to join forces with on your next hardware project.

Even though this was technically not the first company that I co-founded, it felt like the first real one. This has mostly to do with the amazing team that was along for the 4 years of working on this ambitious idea.

Platforms: Web
Timeframe: 2011 - 2015
Highlights: Building a Company and Team from scratch, diving into the Start-Up ecosystem in Europe and the USA, winning Axel-Springers Hy! Award and working with great investors who shared our vision

Thanks for your interest!

Here's a tiny bit more about me

I'm a designer and entrepreneur based in Berlin, Germany. There a few things that I enjoy more than coming up with a product idea and turning it into reality. It's what I love and do best.

Over the last couple of years I co-founded a start-up that went on to create two online platforms, and helped other start-ups and companies to bring their ideas to market. During this time I also started a conference on the topic of the Internet of Things and began mentoring young companies as part of the Seedcamp network.