Resources
Csilla Spiller
Csilla founded Beatechful, a B2B2C startup providing ai-driven cosmetic personalization. She’s also managing associate at TUM Incubator and long-time member at START Munich.
Beautechful is funded by EXIST and UnternehmerTUM Prototype Fund. It started 2 years ago, but for the first half year this was just a side project.
Identifying a Market Need
- Team met at START hack
- Identified lots of problems and even more possible solutions
- Decided on building a machine to produce ad-hoc color-customized foundations
- Classic approach
Prototyping & Validation
- The team had a few different backgrounds: electrical engineering, software engineering, food chemistry, business
- They built a prototype foundation station during the week-long hackathon
- Crazy quilt: Csilla requested all kinds of people in the industry on LinkedIn and reached out to everyone who accepted. This is how their collaboration with dm (and some other cosmetics company) started
- Tested their prototype on Superbloom and presented to dm
- Built traction on this prototype and received letters of intent (LOIs)
Transition
- They realized they had limited expertise in manufacturing liquids, would need much capital for production, and would have to comply with different certifications → Too complex!
- Instead, they shifted to use their color matching algorithm to build a screen-only device that recommends OTC cosmetics to customers
Real-World Testing
- Now beta-testing at central Munich dm
- Constant collection of anonymous user data: where they tap, how they interact
- Also direct feedback channel for users
- Free cosmetics sponges for user feedback
Market
- Competitors: Only online services that recommend cosmetics based on selfies
- Their scanning is more accurate due to sensors in controlled environment
Personal Learnings
- Set milestones and deadlines, and stick to them: If they’re not reachable, pivot, or leave the project
- EXIST required some LOIs
Some Questions
You eventually shifted to a simpler product of bc of certifications and production complexity.
For 1, Do you regret not thinking about how to get this to market earlier and spending all this time on the complex solution?
- No, because they reused much of the technology (algorithms etc.) on th next generation
And for 2, how was your collaboration with dm in this transition period?
- They were a bit afraid of the complexity of the first product, communicated this, and Beautechful pitched the simplified product.
- Risk also came from white-label cosemtic providers that dm uses (producing the ingredients), because that’s all trade-secrets
What’s the risk you’re taking by relying on dm?
- dm gave them more than being a competitor by providing this beta testing possibility
- They would consider exclusivity given a good price
Csilla LinkedIn
Hey Csilla, danke dass du uns heute den Weg von Beautechfull vorgestellt hast!
Ich bereite auch gerade unsere EXIST-Bewerbung vor, da hab ich direkt noch ein paar Fragen :)Als ihr euch beworben habt, wie weit wart ihr schon? Man darf ja nicht wirklich gründen, aber hattet ihr schon die DM-Kooperation, hattet ihr schon zu Makeup Match pivoted? Und wart ihr noch alle Studis? Mit der Vorgabe strugglen wir gerade ein bisschen seit ich den Master hier angefangen hab, haha.