How to build a tech business from scratch

I was only 19 when I moved to Berlin to study Computer Science and International Management. My big dream was to start a global tech company that would have a lasting impact in Europe. Now, Wunderlist is almost three years old and looking back, things have turned out so much more differently than what I had expected. So far it has been the best time of my life –What a ride!

I am living my dream. With Wunderlist we are building an international product with a huge opportunity to transform the productivity market, both in personal life and business collaboration. It’s a long road to success, but I’m happy and grateful for where we are today and looking forward for all the things to come. I decided it’s time to share my learnings and encourage all of you to start your own adventures whether it’s in Europe or any other place in the world. …

(Originally published at christianreber.com in April 2013)

Today, we are announcing the business model behind Wunderlist, the first version of Wunderlist Pro. For a young business like ours, this is an incredibly important milestone. So much so that today I would love to take this opportunity to reflect on the last 2.5 years. I want to share with you some insights and key learnings, as well as talk a little bit about our future.

Let’s start at the beginning… In November 2010, six people (two designers and four engineers — including me) launched the first version of Wunderlist, a simple to-do app for Mac and Windows. Just one month later, the same team introduced Wunderlist for iPhone. All apps tied together through our very own cloud sync. It was our first experience designing and developing a cross-platform product — and it has been great. Now, 2.5 …

(Originally published at christianreber.com in September 2012)

This year has been the most exciting in my career as an entrepreneur, but also the most challenging. We launched our new product Wunderkit after actively working on it for roughly a year, and just months after launch we decided to end its development and focus only on Wunderlist. Why? To put it simply — our users. Wunderlist currently has almost three million active users who have favoured it over Wunderkit. That’s the short story, but there’s a lot more to it.

The beginning of 6Wunderkinder

As you will read in our official blog post about the future of 6Wunderkinder, we started the company with the mission to reinvent “project management”. We knew it would take us a long time to build that product, so we decided to start with a little appetizer to show everyone what we were capable of. That product was Wunderlist, which we launched officially in November 2010. With Wunderlist our strategy was to build an extremely simple and beautiful task manager for Mac & Windows — and it went off like a bomb. Right after we launched it, we decided to build some mobile apps for it, so we rolled it out to iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone. Here is a graph of all downloads (excluding updates) for Wunderlist on iPhone, iPad and Mac, compared with Wunderkit, from the last two years. …

If you run a startup, you often get the question “Why are you doing this?”. What’s your motivation behind taking risks, raising capital, launching products, hiring people and making or losing money? My usual answer is passion, fun and opportunity. But last week a journalist asked me that question again and I’ve tried to give a real in-depth answer to that. I said, I think a startup is like an entrance pass to Disneyland. If you want to enter Disneyland, you need to invest some money and time, but if you cross the borders, you are entering a new world of opportunities, imagination and entertainment. …