Meet a Founder: Vidya Munde-Mueller
On our second “Meet a Founder” of 2021, we feature another very special guest, Vidya Munde-Mueller, CEO and Co-Founder at Givetastic, who has been part and active on our community for some years. She has 14+ years of work experience, mostly in the fields of Aerospace, Automotive and Telecommunications. During these years she could develop excellent communication and leadership skills in many challenging projects as a Consultant and Product Manager, and then…she took the Entrpeneur Leap. She is very enthusiastic, highly motivated and always willing to learn new things but also to share
2020 caught us unprepared, nevertheless, Givetastic was quite active, right?
Yes. At the beginning there was a confusion of how to continue but we quickly grasped that Corona could also mean a new opportunity for us. So we focused on changing our product and our business model and conducting a PoC with a company. The positive response from the company and their employees gave us a motivation boost to keep trying. We applied for Government funding and got Corona-Sofort-Hilfe directly. It kind-of gave us a new lifeline!
Do you want to highlight any particular milestone or success story?
Well, winning prizes is always fun but what really helped was that we started believing in the concept after we won 11.000€ monetary award and third-place from Hannover startup competition ( 3rd Prize Hannoverimpuls: https://www.wirtschaftsfoerderung-hannover.de/Startup-Impuls) for founders from over 100 startups! That was something special to us. It gave us a new vindication that what we are trying to do is worthwhile to pursue — Empowering every person and every organization to create positive social impact!
Since Oct 2020, we have been graced with the presence of a wonderful CTO and Co-Founder, Viji Villadathu. Viji is bringing a strong IT-strategy & technology background along with an experience spanning over 25 years! Viji and I had a lot of fun on a Radio Frankfurt interview on 02. December (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhoAMA25S7I&feature=youtu.be). We are incredibly delighted to have secured pre-seed funding from a very distinguished german investor (https://apx.ac/) in 2020. The topping on the cake is the launch of our apps in the stores
Was there any institution or mentors who particularly supported you in 2020?
All throughout 2020, we were so lucky to have many mentors and advisors. Particularly, I want to mention — Hilda Lanas, who helped us understand the NGOs as she herself has a lot of experience with International Development. I am happy to say that she has officially joined our team and is helping us out in her spare time!
More about Hilda on our press-page: https://www.givetastic.org/press-1
How do you, your partners and stakeholders look into 2021? Is it possible to make predictions?
We are so happy that we I think that in 2021, we will be able to prove that our concept is fitting not only for small SMEs but also big corporates looking to make meaningful engagements with their employees. We are working to understand our customers and help them with their pain-points and create great product features. We are looking for a seed-funding opportunity in June-July 2021. (We have already procured a pre-seed funding from https://apx.ac/)
Do you want to share any tips for other founders?
Keep believing in yourself! It is not an easy journey but it is worth trying it out. In twenty years you will be more disappointed with things that you didn’t do than the things you did do!
What are the next big steps for Givetastic and yourself?
Looking forward to releasing a new version of the app with “City Wallet” functionality to support local city projects in your city.
Call to action: Try out our app and give us feedback!
APPLE iOS App Version:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/givetastic/id1493423647
ANDROID App Version:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.givetastic.android
To use the App, please input the Wallet code sent to you or try out the Test Wallet below (Please copy paste this code in the app):
Feedback bitte hier: https://www.givetastic.org/app-testing-feedback
Wallet Code (Test Wallet): syNy7JUpaK6dj4pKVJW1
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